Not too close for comfort?

Then high-tech grandma Sara Baumholtz may be onto something — especially on a day like Mother's Day, when millions of long-distance families long to catch up.

When Baumholtz and her daughter connect today, they plan to see each other, even though they live 5,000 miles apart.

They'll use an Internet video-chat service called SightSpeed, which gives their weekly talks a more personal touch and costs $5 a month for each of them to subscribe.

Baumholtz's daughter, 1990 Pearl City grad Dawn Felder, is an attorney just outside of Pittsburgh. When 32-year-old Felder had a baby 16 months ago, Grandma and Grandpa Baumholtz in Pearl City wanted a better way to stay connected. The phone and e-mail just weren't cutting it. And the Internet video service they tried was grainy.

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Tips for getting connected • You need a broadband Internet connection (not a slow phone connection). • If you're looking for something free (and who isn't?), Yahoo and MSN offer no-cost video chatting through their instant-messaging programs, but Time magazine says: "their video features feel like afterthoughts." • If you want a hookup like the high-tech grandmas, try SightSpeed (www.sightspeed.com), a program from a small company in Berkeley, Calif., that costs $5 a month.

"It's just like they're sitting there with you," said Baumholtz. "This really creates more intimate time you're setting up to be together."

The main reasons Felder likes the service are the little things.

"I like the fact that they can see my daughter," she said. "When she started crawling and walking, they could actually see her."

Services like this are making video chatting easier and more affordable. While security measures prevent many military families from using the service to connect to deployed loved ones, video conferencing is growing in popularity in other pockets, such as the deaf community, which uses instant video chatting to relay sign language.

Sara Baumholtz, 56, says you don't have to be very Internet-savvy to make it work.

It's been a wonderful way to connect," she said. "It's the next best thing to being there."