Working in APRS packet mode with ISS

I'm just into this, working in APRS packet mode with ISS. Many of my friends who actively involved with APRS have worked with ISS before but for some reason, I've left behind. Not until few days ago when finally, my beacon is heard, repeated and s-gated from ISS to satellite APRS gateway and finally showed up in ariss.net. My setup won't allow me to communicate with ISS BBS system nor messaging since I'm 'misusing' aprx (meant to be as internet gateway for APRS) to send the beacons. I'm still looking for a terminal based software which can run on Linux to experiment further with the BBS and what nots.

Anyway, thanks to many of my friends, now I know that I could track the ISS using SatScape (Java) that could be run from any operating system (I'm running Mac OSX Leopard). And now I learnt that using WIDE1-1, WIDE2-1 while working with ISS is not advisable. Bob has suggested that we should use ARISS, APRSAT or WIDE as per his FAQ found here.

Here is the first time my callsign appeared in ariss.net: