Category: Skype
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Have Skype and Global IP Solutions (GIPS) parted ways?
Continue Reading: Have Skype and Global IP Solutions (GIPS) parted ways?Ever since Skype first launched, they have really been one of the showcases for Global IP Solutions‘ (GIPS – formerly “Global IP Sound”) codecs, particularly the wideband iSAC codec which you could argue is largely what has accounted for the great audio quality you can often get on Skype calls. Now, of course GIPS has many other customers – in fact their customer/partner list reads like a veritable “Who’s Who” of companies within the VoIP industry. Skype, though, has always been one of the great examples to point to.
It would seem, though, that Skype and GIPS have had a parting of the ways. Back in March, there was discussion of new codecs in the Skype 3.2 beta and the possibility that this was as a result of an acquisition Skype had made. Yesterday, though, there was a post to the main Skype blog that included this (my emphasis in bold):
And because we’ve replaced our audio engine in our most recent releases — it’s now fully built in-house — it’s worth bearing in mind that you may run into some bumps when a call is placed from an older version of Skype to newer versions.
So “it’s now fully built…
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Making Skype calls from a Blackberry… (yes, it is true!) And where was the PC making the conf call??
Continue Reading: Making Skype calls from a Blackberry… (yes, it is true!) And where was the PC making the conf call??Today I called Alec Saunders via Skype. Not terribly unusual, really… except that I initiated the Skype call from my Blackberry! Back on Monday, Jim Courtney over at Skype Journal had posted a teaser about an application for the Blackberry that allowed you to use Skype IM. Today my curiosity got the better of me and I had to IM Jim to get the info. I downloaded the app and promptly had to try it out… I guess by virtue of Alec being at the top of my contact list, he was my victim (I also know from past experience that he’s open to this kind of thing).
Tonight Jim has spilled the goods for all of us in the post rather dramatically titled “Skype on the Blackberry – A New Era in the AlwaysOn World“. It turns out to be an application called “IM+ for Skype” from a company called ShapeServices, which makes a variety of software products for PDAs (and specifically Blackberries). It turns out there was a news release about this back on May 7th, but I didn’t see any coverage of this at all. The app itself costs $25, but you can…
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Skype 3.5 beta out with Call Transfer and more… (and is Skype Pro now in the US?)
Continue Reading: Skype 3.5 beta out with Call Transfer and more… (and is Skype Pro now in the US?)Today Skype released their initial version of Skype 3.5 Beta for Windows. You can download it here if you are the adventuresome type. In addition to fixing a bug (that caused Skype to crash) with public chats that has been plaguing those of us who use them, the major feature rolled out in this release is the long-awaited “Call Transfer”. Don Kennedy goes into this at far greater length in “Skype Pro Does Call Transfer” where he provides some examples and also provides a sample application.
One of his examples is the interesting one of having all calls be transferred to a “group” which could include Skype names as well as SkypeOut numbers. In Don’s example, you could have someone call you on a SkypeIn number which would then be transferred to the “group” which could include your own Skype ID and also a SkypeOut connection to your cell phone. Now all of this capability isn’t yet in the Skype GUI. Today you need Don’s Call Transfer Example application, also available through the Skype Extras manager, but it is a glimpse of what is coming.
There is one gotcha… to do the transfer from a SkypeIn number or…
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One of Skype’s most public faces moves on…
Continue Reading: One of Skype’s most public faces moves on…For those of us who pay attention to things related to Skype, one of the people we became most familiar with has moved on to different pastures. Back in May 2005 when Skype started up their first blogs, Jaanus Kase was the public “face” who helped those of us outside the company understand a bit more about this thing called “Skype” and all that was happening with it. A prolific writer/blogger, Jaanus told us about new features, industry trends, promotions and also told us about many things happening inside of Skype as the company itself evolved and changed. He interviewed people, he talked about how Skype was enabling people to communicate, he responded to criticism and generally helped “humanize” the entity that is Skype through his many, many postings. He did so with a conversational style that was sometimes serious, sometimes humerous… but generally always enjoyable to read. He also launched a “Skype Blog Public Chat” back in November 2006 that many of us early adopters joined and it provided a great forum for exchange of information about what was going on with Skype. That public chat still exists, although it doesn’t quite have the same volume and interesting…
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Skype raises public chat limits to 150 – but why do I see 200 in a chat room?
Continue Reading: Skype raises public chat limits to 150 – but why do I see 200 in a chat room?Today Skype announced that you could now have up to 150 people in a public chat session. They had quietly rolled this out a bit ago, but I only noticed then because I monitor and participate in a couple of Skype public chats that focus on new releases/features of Skype and development issues.
There does, though, seem to be a continuing puzzle around discrepancies regarding the actual limits. Ask any 4 people in a Skype public chat to type “/info” on the command line and relay the result… and you’ll probably get four very different answers. I just did that in one public chat (Update: it was the “Skype Developer community public chat“) and, as shown in the graphic, showed a total of 201 people in a chat session… with the limit theoretically being 150! Someone else in the chat did the same command and showed 122 people. At various times in the past, we’ve done similar tests and found that there’s a very wide range of numbers.
One has to wonder… is this something about the peer-to-peer “cloud” that makes up the Skype infrastructure? Is this a convergence issue? i.e. over time the numbers will converge to a…
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Skype launches "Small Business Pack" in Europe (and for resellers)
Continue Reading: Skype launches "Small Business Pack" in Europe (and for resellers)Yesterday, Skype announced a new “Small Business Pack” available in 12 European countries – and also indicated that you could become a Skype reseller to sell this pack.
Phil Wolff over at Skype Journal has more coverage and raises some good points that are unknown about the reseller program. (And FYI, in the interesting way all this happens, my “tip” to him was in the Skype public group chat that Phil has hosted for months when I asked him if he’d heard of this new pack.)
To me, this represents another new method for Skype to look to get into the business market. It’s not entirely clear to me how many resellers will really pick it up, since the pack really only represents a 50-euro savings, but I suppose on one level it’s something they can at least sell. It’s also not clear to me exactly why a reseller would be needed since you can also order the pack directly from Skype’s online web site, so even with volume discounts, there would not seem to really be a whole lot of margin in it for a reseller. Maybe there are, as Phil writes, enough “Skype-crazy consultants” out there seeking to…
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Skype as a platform for secure VPN tunnels?
Continue Reading: Skype as a platform for secure VPN tunnels?Since Skype has an open client-side API, why not use it as a transport to tunnel VPN traffic and blow through firewalls to connect you to a remote system? That’s the idea raised by Peeter P. Mõtsküla in his Skype Developer Blog entry: “Idea: skypetunnel“. For instance, have a Skype client running on your home machine logged in as one account. Have Skype on your laptop on another account. Initiate a connection between the two of them and wind up with secure, encrypted access through the firewall from wherever you are. Being peer-to-peer, there would be no central servers or infrastructure required (outside the usual Skype p2p cloud.) This would require, of course, a yet-to-be-created “extra” that connected into the Skype client API and was installed on both systems… but that was the point of the article – to suggest that something like this could be done (and perhaps inspire someone to write one).
It’s an interesting idea, although as one commenter noted, it has already been done in a p2p fashion by Hamachi. I don’t know how large Hamachi’s p2p cloud (i.e. userbase) is compared to Skype and whether or not that even makes a difference, but the…