Update:
Skype is free. That's the best thing I can say about it.
I called Daniel yesterday. I had video problems with Skype: I could see Daniel, but he couldn't see me. I hit the net researching how to make Skype work with my wife's webcam (HP Pro Webcam). No joy. I narrowed it down to trying 3 software work-arounds. No luck. My final recourse is to downgrade to Skype version 3.8. If this doesn't do the trick, I'm done wasting my time with this loozer communications system.
Also, this is meant as no negative reflection on Daniel or my wife's sister- but the image quality was quite poor. I mean, I had better camera image quality back in the early 1990's. This is 2009 for God's sake!
What was the old saying? You get what you pay for...