An extremely versatile application, iChat lets you participate in simple text chats, audio chats, or video chats with one or a group of people with Internet access and an AIM, Google Talk, or Jabber account. To get started, you first need to set up iChat on your system by clicking the icon for iChat in the Dock and responding to the questions in the dialogs that appear.

To add a buddy to your Buddy List in iChat:

1. Choose Add Buddy from the Buddies menu (or click the + sign at the bottom of the Buddy List window).
2. Type the name of your friend’s account name in the Account Name field and select the type of account from the pop-up menu.
3. Choose the group to which you’d like to add your new buddy, type your buddy’s first and last names in the appropriate fields, and click the Add button.