Category: Skype
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More Skype outage coverage… (cue "It’s the End of the World As We Know It!")
Continue Reading: More Skype outage coverage… (cue "It’s the End of the World As We Know It!")Somewhat predictably, the blogosphere is going nuts about the Skype outage. It’s currently at the top of Techmeme. As Tris Hussey notes in his post, Skype has indeed become a key communication tool for many individuals and businesses. Other VoIP bloggers offering commentary:
- Om Malik: “Does Skype Outage Expose P2P’s Limitations?“
- Tom Keating: “Skype Outage” – wonders if it had to do with the Microsoft updates (I would think not because the outage happened to me prior to me installing the updates)
- Andy Abramson: “Skype Suffers Major Outage” – helpfully points people to Gizmo and SightSpeed as alternatives
The Register, of course, chimed in with their normal attitude. Ars Technica, meanwhile, commented that the outage was surprising mostly because of “”how often it doesn’t happen”. Taking another view, Mashable is reporting that eBay’s stock has dipped this morning.
Meanwhile, Skype users around the world consider what other IM programs to use and some of them will, maybe, just maybe, have to actually pick up a phone today!
Technorati tags: skype, skype outage -
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Skype… disrupted. Skype login possibly down for 12-24 hours…
Continue Reading: Skype… disrupted. Skype login possibly down for 12-24 hours…As a Skype user, I was a bit surprised when, after restarting my computer today (due to a crash when I was trying SecondLife with voice, but that’s another story), the Skype icon just kept on spinning and spinning saying “Connecting”. And then it would be online… and then it wasn’t… and then it was… and then it wasn’t….
My first sign that it was something larger than my (sometimes flaky) laptop was a Facebook status update by Jim Courtney saying that Skype might have an outage for 12-24 hours. About the same time I saw a tweet from Chris Brogan. The “social networking information sharing network” was hard at work…
A trip to Skype’s “Heartbeat” page showed the problem:
Oops.
Nicely, though, Skype staff have posted a status update on their heartbeat page:
UPDATED 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience.
So sometime…
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Skype Journal: "Security, Skype and the Blackberry"
Continue Reading: Skype Journal: "Security, Skype and the Blackberry"Since I have written here about the new Skype clients for the Blackberry, such as iSkoot and IM+, and questioned the security of those clients, I feel compelled to note that Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal, who also writes a good bit about Blackberries as well as Skype, has posted his response to the issue on Friday: “Security, Skype and the Blackberry“.
I still suffer a lingering uncertainty, but I’ll admit that Jim’s digging does seem rather persuasive.
Technorati tags: skype, skype journal, jim courtney, blackberry, rim -
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The other story about the recording of the Telecom Junkies podcast: Interview with a VoIP Hacker – a.k.a. why my voice levels are so different
Continue Reading: The other story about the recording of the Telecom Junkies podcast: Interview with a VoIP Hacker – a.k.a. why my voice levels are so differentWhy does my voice change in audio quality about half-way through the new Telecom Junkies podcast? Here’s the story.
A few minutes ago I posted to both the Voice of VoIPSA weblog and also the Blue Box podcast site a note about the new Telecom Junkies podcast that features an interview with Robert Moore, one of the two people involved with the large VoIP fraud cast last year. About mid-way through my connection dies and you hear Jason saying “Oh, we lost Dan!” and then I’m back, but with a much softer voice.
Since it says something about telephony – and since I’m also interested in relaying lessons for podcasting – here’s what happened.
In the hotel I was staying at in Florida, I was getting pretty poor connections using my AT&T GSM phone (the replacement Blackberry had not yet arrived). I’d noticed that when calling people from my room, even if I went out onto the balcony, calls would still drop out sometimes – even when I was sitting still. Now I don’t know if this was because I was on the 20th floor (room 2048, what a great geek number!) or because I was at just a…
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New version of IM+ out that lets you do Skype from your Blackberry…
Continue Reading: New version of IM+ out that lets you do Skype from your Blackberry…About a month ago, I wrote about the “IM+ for Skype” client that let you use Skype on your Blackberry. Well, a new version 2.5 is out now and Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal has a review. Jim is quite enthusiastic about a new feature that lets you specify the number at which IM+ will call you back (rather than only calling you back on your mobile). I also found this interesting:
As an added benefit, IM+ 2.5 will not only make calls to those in my Skype Contacts but also my Blackberry address book. In summary IM+ provides a very versatile way of combining access to both Skype and Blackberry resources.
Interesting to see the merger of Skype and Blackberry directories. I’ve not yet played with it and don’t see myself having the time to do so in the next bit, but Jim says he’ll be writing more in the time ahead about it.
Technorati tags: skype, blackberry, rim, im+, im, shape services, jim courtney, skype journal -
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iSkoot – cool idea for a Skype client for Blackberry, but I don’t see me using it much because…
Continue Reading: iSkoot – cool idea for a Skype client for Blackberry, but I don’t see me using it much because…Last week I wrote some first impressions of iSkoot, a new Skype client for Blackberry, and while I still think it’s a very cool idea, I don’t see myself using it all that much. Why not? Very simply…
Battery life!
Or the lack thereof. Yes, indeed, it all does seem to come down to batteries, and iSkoot seems to certainly consume its share of power. Now granted, my Blackberry 7290 is an older model and for all I know could probably use a new battery, but in “normal” operation, I can charge it up and then have it run for a good 3 or 4 days before it needs a recharge. However, start up iSkoot and I found I suddenly needed a recharge by the end of the day!
In fairness, iSkoot is not alone in this… the other Blackberry IM clients I’ve used, both the Windows Messenger client and also most recently the IM+ client for Skype also have this same problem. I’m assuming it has something to do with the need to regularly use the data connection for updates to status and to update chat messages.
I can see this actually being most useful to me when I’m traveling and…
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iSkoot provides another Skype client for Blackberry devices… review – and my first reaction is that it has a challenge with the "instant" part of "instant messaging"
Continue Reading: iSkoot provides another Skype client for Blackberry devices… review – and my first reaction is that it has a challenge with the "instant" part of "instant messaging"NOTE: Please see the updates at the bottom of this post.
Back on Monday, Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal IM’d me (on Skype naturally) asking if he could do a test call to me on "another Skype client for the Blackberry". Naturally, I said yes and in a moment or so we were speaking. It turned out that he was using a new beta application from iSkoot. From the news release:
The new iSkoot v1.1 delivers a comprehensive mobile Skype experience on BlackBerry: With the click of a button, users can instantly chat with their Skype contacts, make and receive Skype calls, and use SkypeOut™ to inexpensively call regular phone numbers nearly anywhere in the world. iSkoot v1.1 also displays complete Skype contact status information, so BlackBerry users can see which friends, family members and business colleagues are available, as well as manage their own online presence. This latest release features a next generation, easy-to-use interface especially designed for BlackBerry users and will offer additional features soon. iSkoot works without any need for PCs, special hardware, custom phones or Wi-Fi hot spots, and utilizes the existing mobile network infrastructure to route Skype calls through the voice channel.
It…
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Skype releases new 3.5 beta that adds video into chats and mood messages
Continue Reading: Skype releases new 3.5 beta that adds video into chats and mood messagesAs announced yesterday on the Share Skype blog and in more detail on the Skype Garage blog (and also in the Windows Release Notes), Skype has released an updated 3.5 beta for Windows. Skype 3.5 beta came out earlier this month, but this new update includes several new features, most notably the ability to add video into a chat or mood message, and per the release notes it also fixes a range of bugs. Jim Courtney has more info over at Skype Journal, but I found this piece of interest with regard to the new video snapshot capability (which now allows you to take a snapshot of the remote video, i.e. the person you are speaking with):
Providing your video also implies that your provide your remote participant with permission to make snapshots. Video snapshots inherits existing privacy mechanisms associated with turning on your video.
So basically if you use Skype video, you should be aware that the person with whom you are chatting could easily capture images of you. (Obviously this has always been possible with screen capture programs, but this is now built into Skype.)
On the “adding videos to chat or mood message” feature, my initial reaction…
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Skype Journal offers more on Skype over Blackberry… and I *still* want to know where the PC is making the conf call!
Continue Reading: Skype Journal offers more on Skype over Blackberry… and I *still* want to know where the PC is making the conf call!Over at Skype Journal, Jim Courtney continues his exploration of the IM+ client that allows you to use Skype on the Blackberry. As I mentioned yesterday, one of my main questions is – where is the PC making the conference call? As Jim noted, he called me today using the client and I snapped the screenshot he uses in his post. You can see in the image on the right that we are in a conference call. The call is hosted by Jim’s Skype client and then brings in his mobile phone and then my Skype account.
But where is that version of Skype running as Jim? It’s not on his PC. It’s not on his Blackberry.
So where is it?
Now, the IM+ client has Jim’s username and password… and so I am guessing there must be a server back at Shape Services, the maker of IM+, that is running instances of Skype for each person using it. Is that how they do it? I would wonder how easily it would scale if this is, in fact, the case.
This all is a concern to me because it does come down to a matter of trust. Where is that…
