Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on skype http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic skype Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb How Skype does it Wed, 08 Oct 2003 11:41:48 +0100 <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/33278.html">How does Skype get through Firewalls and NAT Routers?</a>. SuperNodes [<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk">The Register</a>] </div> Interesting.  You find out there is a call for you and make an outbound TCP call to the SuperNode to meet it.  That's neat thinking ;-) Also as an aside when I installed Skype a couple of weeks ago I was regularly seeing around 30,000 online users.  Last time I checked it was regularly around 60,000. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001652.html More skype talk Sun, 26 Oct 2003 20:23:57 +0000 Had <a href="http://www.skype.com/">Skype</a> conversations last night with both <a href="http://www.terryfrazier.com/weblog/">Terry Frazier</a> and <a href="http://www.henshall.com/blog/">Stuart Henshall</a>.  Terry and I have spoken a couple of times now thanks to Skype and it's much better than IM.  We were ruminating on how our circumstances have changed since we first 'met.'  It was the first time I had spoken to Stuart but I warmed to him straight away.  We talked about K-Collector/MovableType (which should be forthcoming RSN), Skype and the opportunities it offers and about some knowledge management issues close to our hearts. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001676.html Skype control Sun, 16 Nov 2003 16:52:09 +0000 Just received a <a href="http://www.skype.com/">Skype</a> call from someone who "wanted to talk to someone in England."  This has lead me to discover that Skype has an option which, if enabled, only allows incoming calls from people on your friends list.  I'm happier with this as a default.  If you want to get in touch just IM me first and I can make you a friend (or not.) http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001733.html No more silly conference phones Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:38:10 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://www.henshall.com/blog/archives/000702.html">Breakthrough Skype Conferencing Solution</a>. The promised Skype conferencing capability is nearing launch. The preview version is available for additional testing today. To confirm I just connect a conference with Bay Area (2), France and India. Great call quality. I then connected another with China... [<a href="http://www.henshall.com/blog/">Unbound Spiral</a>]</blockquote> Exciting news! I wonder when we'll be able to start integrating this functionality into our applications. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001907.html PocketSkype first impressions Mon, 12 Apr 2004 19:07:27 +0100 <blockquote><a href="http://www.henshall.com/blog/archives/000868.html">PocketSkype Screenshots</a>. The screenshots for Pocket Skype. Nice simple execution for those with the latest PDA's.... [<a href="http://www.henshall.com/blog/">Unbound Spiral</a>]</blockquote>My Dad and I messed about with PocketSkype yesterday with him installing it on two pocket pc's with PPC2003.  Overall the results were promising and when you bear in mind the sudden leap in quality of recent betas of desktop Skype you can imagine that it will be improving fast. So how well did it work?  We were able to hold a conversation but quality was generally not good with a lot of echo and distortion.  Some of this might have been related to tuning the audio in PocketPC I'm not sure.  There were also a couple of crashes.  I also had my first crash of the desktop app but I'm not sure if that is related.  Lastly it seemed problematic to answer calls on the PPC side with the green icon not always doing the right thing. Overall though, very promising. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002060.html Conversations Mon, 12 Apr 2004 23:22:39 +0100 A few days back I had the pleasure of a <a href="http://www.skype.com/">Skype</a> call from <a href="http://www.terryfrazier.com/weblog/">Terry Frazier</a>.  Unfortunately I was busy Skyping with someone else at the time so had to call him back.  At that point he was Skyping with <a href="http://www.henshall.com/blog/">Stuart Henshall</a>, so Stuart conferenced me in to that call.  So there were were London, Atlanata and California on a free call with great quality.  Thank you Skype. And speaking of conversations with people from far flung places <a href="http://www.blogstreet.com/">Veer Bothra</a> (Bombay) was the first person to visit the <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/2004/04/09.html#a1399">#kmtalk</a> IRC channel that I setup.  <a href="http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/">Suw</a> dropped in also.  We had an interesting chat.  I hope that, in time, others may find there way there also. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002065.html Getting Real with Stowe Tue, 20 Apr 2004 21:46:17 +0100 Had a first chat with <a href="http://www.corante.com/getreal/">Stowe Boyd</a> this evening.  Enjoyed it very much despite some troubles with Skype (poor voice quality in one direction or another at various points) which we augmented with IM.  We talked about <a href="http://www.evectors.com/itkcollector/">K-Collector</a>, IRC, Wiki, Sense making, Cynefin, social tools and how KM is suffering from fatigue.  Thanks Stowe! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002089.html Multiplatform VOIP from FreeWorldDialup Fri, 23 Apr 2004 20:12:02 +0100 <a href="http://chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog">Suw</a> put me on to <a href="http://www.freeworlddialup.com/">FreeWorld Dialup</a> which may be an alternative to <a href="http://www.skype.com/">Skype</a>. I'm quite happy with Skype: voice quality is improving and the directory isn't too bad. However, for me, it has one serious flaw: a lack of a Mac client (ah Groove...). Looks like the FWD guys have that covered and Linux as well! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002116.html Aint no such thing as free Thu, 29 Apr 2004 20:58:13 +0100 Yesterday I had a chance to try <a href="http://www.freeworlddialup.com/">FreeWorldDialup</a> for the first time. <a href="http://www.meskill.net/weblogs/">Judith</a> and I wanted to chat and since she is on Mac and I am on Windows it seemed like a perfect opportunity. Downloading the client (SJPhone) was easy and, up to that point, everything was fine. From then on however, things got bumpy. How do I call you? I couldn't see any way. I kept trying to add Judith to the address book, but I eventually figured out it wasn't searching a directory, I was just creating a dummy entry with her name. The interface had numbers but I had no idea what my number was or what Judiths was. When I first opened the client it made me create a FWD account, but didn't say anything about a number. The client didn't seem to know it and the SIP tab the instructions told me I should look for didn't appear anywhere. Judith was fairing a little worse - her client didn't even prompt to make her create an account. I went back to the FWD site and found all kinds of references to numbers I should have. There seemed to be a way of creating accounts there too which seemed somehow different to what I had done before. I went through that and *bingo* got my number. Now, how do I put it in the client? While I searched in vain for how to insert the number in the client, Judith also signed up. Eventually I discovered that creating an account at startup had given me a number -- it just didn't bother to actually tell me about it! Okay - the tension is mounting. We both have numbers. I dial Judith and... nothing. I can't hear anything at all. Then some choppy noise. "Is that you Judith?" She, of course, can hear me fine as she reports via instant messenger. So, confusing, Confusing, CONFUSING and it didn't work. Roll on Skype4Mac! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002145.html Virtual Audio Cables & Skype Wed, 05 May 2004 07:40:01 +0100 Following links from <a href="http://www.henshall.com/blog/archives/000886.html">Stuart</a> about running multiple Skype instances I came across the <a href="http://forum.skype.com/bb/index.php">Skype Forums</a> where people are talking abut how to run multiple instances of Skype, but also streaming Skype conversations into other VOIP and Net2Phone services using a nifty gadget called a  <a href="http://spider.nrcde.ru/music/software/eng/vac.html">Virtual Audio Cable</a>. <blockquote>Virtual Audio Cable is a Windows multimedia driver allowing you to transfer audio (wave) streams from one application to another. It creates a pair of Wave In/Out devices for each cable. Any application can send audio stream to Out device, and any other application can receive this stream from In device. All transfers are made digitally, providing NO sound quality loss. [...] If more than one applications are sending audio to VAC, it will mix all streams together. If more than one applications are receiving audio from VAC, it will share the same audio data between all targets. [...] VAC is useful to record application's audio output in real time (for example - Generator, Reality or other software synth), or transfer a sound stream to another application processing it. You can, for example, use two or more software audio generators/synthesizers/sequencors to produce audio streams sending them to VAC Out, and record the mixed stream from VAC In using any recording software - Windows Sound Recorder, Sound Forge, WaveLab, Cool Edit, Gold Wave, Cakewalk, Cubase etc. </blockquote> This opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities like running a stream from a Skype conference to an internet radio broadcast.  Very cool. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002190.html Don't call us... Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:48:45 +0000 I forgot to mention that I now have a Skype-In account with a shiny new voicemail box. At 10 for 3 months (including the voicemail) it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. I'm now using the Skype number as my office number which makes the voicemail doubly handy. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002460.html Skypetooth with the HS820? Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:09:04 +0100 I bought myself a <a href="http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=822&source=BROWSER">Motorola HS820 bluetooth headset</a> to use with the <a href="http://direct.motorola.com/ens/web_producthome.asp?Country=USA&language=ENS&productid=29302">V3</a>. Whilst I'm sure to look very cool strutting down the street like the hip kids in the HelloMoto adverts my main reason for buying one was for use in the car. In testing so far I've the range and sound quality to be excellent, and it's very light (16g) and comfortable to wear. In fact i'm now wondering whether it's PC compatible. Can I use it as my Skype headset? Update: Stuart talks about <a href="http://www.skypejournal.com/blog/archives/2005/03/skypeheadset_ta_1.php">doing this very thing</a> in a SkypeJournal post. He's using a 3rd party tool called SkypeHeadset and the Motorola HS810 rig and it seems to work very well. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002512.html Skypetooth#2 Tue, 19 Apr 2005 15:48:48 +0100 With a lot of faffing about (mainly Windows XP-SP2 issues) I have managed to get my Motorola HS820 setup as a headset on this PC and am waiting for my license of <a href="http://www.skypeheadset.co.uk/">SkypeHeadset</a> to come through. The guys there were very helpful in getting me to this point so I'm hoping the last step will be plain sailing. I look forward to a world where I can continue my Skype conversations whilst making a cup of tea! http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002518.html First Skype spam Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:36:39 +0100 I've received my first Skype-In spam. When I signed on today I had a voicemail from unknown number telling me about a wonderful holiday package to Florida including a trip to the Bahama's all for the unmissable price of £199. Why do I think it's targetted to SkypeIn? Because the price was in pounds even though the voice was American (it sounded like a voice synthesizer to me). I wonder where they got my Skype-In number from? Since Skype is not telephony am I protected by the same regulations as phone? Hmm... http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002689.html Skype glitch Mon, 04 Jul 2005 15:27:06 +0100 I'm having problems with my Skype voicemail. Or, rather, Skype are having problems with my voicemail -- realising they've extended it that is It works. People do get forwarded to it, I get notifications and can listen to the voicemails. What isn't working is my Skype account page which lists VoiceMail as having expired on June 10th and other people do not seem to see a voicemail icon against my name in their contact list (where others do have the icon). I'm trying to get to the bottom of this through the support site but not getting very far, very fast. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002722.html Go go HS820 Thu, 21 Jul 2005 11:44:58 +0100 Too groovy. My thanks to <a href="http://www.headshift.com/moments.cfm">Lee</a> for sharing how to pair up the Motorola HS820 with the MacTop, now I can mobile Skype ;-)The trick is that it will only pair in one way. From the headset switched off you hold the button until the lights flash to show it is on, then you continue to hold the button for several more seconds until the light comes on solidly. At this point it will pair. Contrast this with the V3 which will pair as long as the headset is on. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002772.html Calling Katrina Fri, 02 Sep 2005 11:16:21 +0100 Phil has a <a href="http://www.skypejournal.com/blog/archives/2005/09/skyping_katrina.php">practical suggestion</a> at Skype Journal for how to help Katrina victims. Communications is a problem and people being able to use SkypeOut to call home (via volunteers) can really help, but they need SkypeOut minutes. I went to my Skype account to try and see how to donate minutes but I can't see an option for it. Phil: How do we donate Skype minutes? And who do we donate them to? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002876.html Dial-a-lunatic Mon, 12 Sep 2005 23:15:58 +0100 So Skype have been acquired for $2.6bn? I heard that their recent revenue was $7m. That gives them a P/E of about 371. What kind of crack are the ebay boys smoking? I've seen a couple of people talking about synergy between Skype and ebay. Sounds like a lot of post-fact justification and nonsense to me. The only rational analysis I've heard is ebay defending their patch by preventing other large communities offering auction services. If that's true this is the most expensive anti-pissing campaign on record. So if you're planning to join (or start) a VOIP company I'd do it soon. Equity is like a pyramid scheme, the big weasels cash out early and leave everying else in the shit. That time will be soon. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002900.html