Reports by Consumers

This consumer reports that Skype has some terms in its license agreements that you might not like:

Ben Edelman knows a lot about the lawyers and money part. He’s a Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard School of Economics and a student at Harvard Law, and a frequent commentator on Internet-related legal issues.

He wrote me this morning to comment on my post, in which I noted that when I downloaded and installed the Kazaa-Skype bundle yesterday, I obtained more than 2,500 adware files.

Ben sent a link to an artice he wrote, in which he notes that in their license document, one of the leading spyware hitchikers on Kazaa-Skype downloads fails to list anti-spyware utilities as an authorized means of removing their files from your PC.

He quotes: "You agree that you will not use, or encourage others to use, any unauthorized means for the removal of the GAIN AdServer, or any GAIN-Supported Software from a computer."

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Read more from this blogger: Phones

This consumer reports on how good the skype connection sounds:

I used Skype for the first time today, it was amazing! I'm serious, it was the clearest telephone conversation I've ever had in my life. Talked to my friend Filup in Sweden for a long time and it was completely free! All I needed was a $20 head-set (Altec AHS-202), that I picked up from the local computer store, plugged it in to the sound card, installed the free Skype software....

If you happen to be one of our friends, and want to call me or Jessica in Europe sometime, my skype name is markmcgaa. Just remember I'll be seven hours later then Minnesota.

Posted on March 18, 2005 in Web/Tech | Permalink

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Call me...no, Skype me:

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Read more from this blogger: Call me...no, Skype me

This consumer reports on converting your existing vcard format records to skype.

(Updated 2005-3-26: The new Skype 1.2 can now export/import contacts in vCard format, making most of this post irrelevant.)

My partners and I use Skype pretty heavily to do calls and conference calls via Voice Over IP, as we’re all located in different countries.

One annoying thing about Skype though, is that as opposed to most IM networks, where contact info is stored on a server on the network somewhere, Skype stores contact info client-side. This is a major pain for when you need to re-install your system, or when you have two computers and want to have the same contact list on both. In these situations, since there’s no built-in import/export facility, you typically have to write down and manually reenter the details for your contacts.

Let’s hope Skype get’s a real built-in import/export facility at some point. It’s hard to believe it’s come so far without one.

Find a folder that has the same name as your skype user name here:

C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\Skype

Thank copy the entire folder to a freshly installed Skype on another machine (make sure skype is not running on either machine while copying)

Start Skype, et voilà a rebuilt contact list in seconds.

$HOME/.skype

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Read more from this blogger: Saving and Restoring Skype Contact Details

Lots of consumers like Skype!

The technology, voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, is offered by telephone and cable companies as well by as instant-messaging services like those from Yahoo and MSN. Skype says that it has over 2.8 million users in the United States and 30.6 million worldwide, and is adding users at a rate of 155,000 a day.

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Read more from this blogger: INDUSTRY ANALYSIS (TechNewsWorld.com)

I'm not sure how well this works, but Skype now has voice mail, incoming calls, outgoing calls, dirt cheap worldwide communication, and now SMS access.

Connectotel has introduced a service (currently in beta test) where mobile phones can be used to send messages to Skype users. If you use Skype and you want to be able to receive messages sent to you by SMS, all you have to do is add a pseudo user to your contact list.

skype johndoe This is a message to johndoe

The original instructions can be found here.

What else do you need?

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Read more from this blogger: SMS to Skype

Some cool pointers to both moderated and unmoderated streams of news about Skype telephony. I don't think any of them are actually affiliated with Skype, though.

There’s a new independent (and inofficial, AFAIK) web site at www.skypetips.com which lists news, a FAQ, ratings on addon hard- and software for Skype and many other things. Looks to me like they might be sponsored by somebody, but then it’s the only site I know of which offers this combination of information relating to Skype. Check it out!

UPDATE: Right after writing this, I found another site that accumulates information on news about Skype: http://skypecentral.jyve.com/. It seems to employ several automatic mechanisms to search news sites, blogs and other sources for Skype related information, so it’s probably quite current but not moderated. Will have to watch that for a while.

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Read more from this blogger: Skype Tips

This consumer reports (in some detail) how to integrate Skype into daily phone life.

This guy has Skype figured out, I’ll need to try some of these when I get home.

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Read more from this blogger: How Skype has changed the way I do voice communication

If parents can use Skype, that's a good sign. This consumer reports on just that:

Continuing with the Skype theme I've been running - I've been really getting interested in all things Skype and the Skype Journal is a great blog source for all the latest news in the Skype world. It really hit home how much of an impact Skype is having when I found that both my parents are using Skype, but not just to keep up with me while I was in Canada. My parents, while being reasonably computer savvy (for their age, heh) aren't quick to adopt new technology. The fact that they have learnt to use Skype...

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Read more from this blogger: Jetlag

This consumer reports on the idea of running a VoIP phone without a computer, communicating with the Internet via router instead. While routers have many of the resources necessary to provide VoIP, they don't have all the resources necessary. But maybe Linksys is listening??

In an interview with Skype CEO Niklas Zennstrom published by Mathaba on March 29, 2005, Niclas said,

“The telephone is becoming a computer. See my telephone, I have Skype on a mobile phone with a 200 MHz processor and an operating system, and it's connected to the Internet with different types of radio access, whether its GPRS, WiFi, 3G or WiMax, it uses different radio technologies. Then telephony becomes a software application that just lives on the network. Skype is that software application, there will certainly be others...”

It just so happens that 200 MHz is the processor speed of my Linksys Router! Talk about Skype “just living on the network”. Now my cordless portable phone will connect to my Linksys router running Skype. My computer can be turned off and I can be always on. A dream? Nope. A 2005 possibility.

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Read more from this blogger: Skype on my Linksys Router?

I haven't been having a problem, but some of my Skyping friends have noticed echos on the line. Here's a Skype Mic setup that can help.

...Instead of bothering with setting up the Griffin iMic and Lapel Mic for using with Skype... I'm going to connect my Plantronics DSP 400 foldable headset permanantly to my USB hub. I'll disable it for use within Windows, but in Skype, I'll set the options to use it instead of the default Windows device. That way the only application on my laptop using the headset will be Skype.

He's refering to the Plantronics DSP-400.

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Read more from this blogger: A Solution for Skype Mic Setup

This consumer reports recent problems with Skype's international call service called SkypeOut.

My wife is a big user of SkypeOut, the paid-for part of the Skype internet phone service. Using SkypeOut for making international calls to normal phones saves a small fortune on our phone bill (see this example).

We have family and friends in Costa Rica, so using SkypeOut to call there makes great sense for money saving compared to the cost in making a call with the normal phone service. You don't have to worry about peak rates or anything like that - same low price per minute whatever the time of day.

But all is not well in Skype land as my wife has been telling me.

For some time, she's been experiencing 100% failure in making calls to numbers in Costa Rica. Failure primarily in just being unable to connect at all and so not make a successful call. Yet a call does goes through if you make it from a normal phone.

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Read more from this blogger: NevOn: Skype has a problem with SkypeOut