So, you read my story a while back and want to know how are things now. Thanks for asking. Things have gone from 'no more tech support' to 'my mother does her own installation'. She has installed amsn to do video chat with us (take that Skype). amsn works across platforms and uses my iSight webcam just fine.
Of course, I walked my mother through the installation. As she says, she didn't educate me for nothing. She hit all the right buttons on Synaptic ( and sometimes the wrong ones too - luckily with no harmful effects.). Hey Presto! She saw me digging my nose via iSight video and felt all happy for her son keeping clean and all. (Actually, she slapped me via iSight. Are you happy now?).
I see Raymond's switches to Ubuntu too (via slashdot).