Category: Skype
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Comparing Skype 5.x For Mac And Windows – Jim Courtney Makes Some Recommendations
Continue Reading: Comparing Skype 5.x For Mac And Windows – Jim Courtney Makes Some RecommendationsWhat did Skype do right in Skype 5.x for Windows that they need to bring across over into Skype 5.x for Mac OS X?That’s essentially the question that Jim Courtney has taken on in two new posts building off his initial post I wrote about last week. He continues the series with:
- Skype for Mac 5: Returning to Ecstasy – Step 1 – Consistency
- Skype for Mac 5: Returning to Ecstasy – Step 2 – The Conversation Pane
No longer having any Windows machines in my life, I hadn’t ever seen the Skype 5.x client for Windows so it was useful to see Jim’s comparison. The “Compact View” he describes in Step 1 would go very far to addressing my greatest issue with Skype 5.x for Mac, namely the ability to have multiple chats open in separate Windows.
I applaud Jim for writing this series of articles and I do hope Skype is listening…
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Whoa! Skype releases an update for the Linux version!
Continue Reading: Whoa! Skype releases an update for the Linux version!I did have to glance out my window a few moments ago and check that there were no pigs flying across the sky… I also checked my calendar to make sure it wasn’t April Fools… why?Skype released an update for Linux!
As much as I may occasionally whine about how Skype doesn’t give the Mac OS X client enough attention (or when they do, they don’t get it right), I’ve got nothing to complain about compared to the folks living in Linux-land. If the Mac client gets “little” attention, the Linux client has appeared to receive almost “no” attention.
So it’s good news that a “Skype 2.2 Beta for Linux” is now out. From the blog post it appears that the Linux client now has:
- Skype Access (ability to connect to WiFi hotspots using Skype credit)
- Support for call waiting and holding
- Improved audio/video quality in calls
- Support for easy conference call creation (also in the Windows and Mac 5.x clients)
- A whack of “improvements” to the user interface and functionality that sound individually like minor tweaks but together undoubtedly make it a more solid experience
- Over 50 various bugs (big…
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My 3 Main Issues With Skype 5.x For The Mac – And Jim Courtney Summarizes The Skype for Mac 5 Saga
Continue Reading: My 3 Main Issues With Skype 5.x For The Mac – And Jim Courtney Summarizes The Skype for Mac 5 SagaI had planned to write a longer blog post today summarizing so much of the recent discussion happening online about the “Skype for Mac 5” client, particularly after the recent release of “Skype for Mac 5.1”. I was planning to link to the various posts, provide context, etc., etc.However, in one of those moments of synchronicity that happen from time to time, I woke up this morning to find that Jim Courtney published a post very much along the lines of what I was going to write:
Skype for Mac 5 – From Ecstasy to Agony
Sooooo…. read his post! 🙂
Seriously, though, do read Jim’s post because he’s done a great job bringing together the various posts in the last couple of weeks related to the Skype for Mac 5.x issues.
For my part, I use BOTH Skype 2.8 and Skype 5.1 on a daily basis… just on two different Macs. I switch back and forth between them, although Skype 2.8 running on my Voxeo laptop continues to be my primary user interface for Skype. I just run 5.1 on an iMac in my home office so that I can try to get used to it.
My biggest…
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Skype’s Mini-Outage On March 30 – And The Need For Greater Transparency
Continue Reading: Skype’s Mini-Outage On March 30 – And The Need For Greater TransparencyYesterday Skype had another outage. This one apparently was only minor and affected people logging in to Skype or using inbound phone numbers (what we used to call “SkypeIn” numbers). It didn’t affect me at all – Skype worked fine for me.Skype’s recovered from the outage… but what I find a bit annoying is that there seems to be no real information about what happened.
There is a brief post on the Skype Heartbeat site which says only that things are “returning to normal” but that there might still be problems with:
- Signing in to Skype, Skype manager, the developer site, and the forums
- Buying Skype Credit or subscriptions
- Making calls to landlines and mobiles
Tales From Twitter
The best guess is what we can glean from their Twitter stream:
So apparently per this tweet the outage was caused “by an ISP failure“.
On The Need For Transparency
Here we are a day later and there is complete silence from Skype’s online sites. Nothing more on Twitter. Nothing on the blogs that I could see. I poked around a bit in the…
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VoiceOnTheWeb Reviews Skype’s Qik Video Connect
Continue Reading: VoiceOnTheWeb Reviews Skype’s Qik Video ConnectWant the scoop on Qik Video Connect for the iPhone and iPad? Shortly after it was released last week Jim Courtney (of VoiceOnTheWeb) and I made our usual calls to each other to try out new apps. Unfortunately, I was slammed with a brutal cold/flu sickness last week and haven’t had the cycles to write up my own thoughts on the new app… nor do I see myself doing so anytime soon. Sooo… let me point you over to Jim’s views on the subject:Qik Video Connect: New Video Directions from Skype
I’ll add to Jim’s commentary that I did also use the free Qik Video Connect app on my iPad2. The app is not designed for the iPad – it’s just the iPhone app running on the iPad2 – but it did work perfectly fine to make and receive video calls. In the multiple calls to Jim I spoke with him from both my iPhone and iPad2.
I did not test out the live streaming due to the fact that I was quite sick and did not honestly want people to see me on video! 🙂 I’m looking forward to trying live streaming, though, at the next event I…
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Skype Releases 5.1 for Mac OSX – Mostly Fixes
Continue Reading: Skype Releases 5.1 for Mac OSX – Mostly FixesFor those Mac users brave enough to step into the world of Skype 5.0 (or who inadvertently accepted the upgrade box that popped up), Skype has come out with Skype 5.1 for Mac OS X today. As Beom Soo Park notes on the Skype Garage blog, this release contains:- Focus on active speakers in group calls
- Dial recently called numbers from dial pad
- Contact groups shown in on the right hand side, allowing more space in the side bar
- Call Quality Feedback
- Several minor bug fixes
All of it pretty much pointing it to being the minor “dot release” that it is. The Mac release notes have also been updated with the same information.
I will say that the removal of the Contact groups from the left sidebar is a huge benefit to me. The result is a MUCH more compact sidebar:
The contact groups have now been moved over to the top of the right window area (the “main” section), which works nicely.
Unfortunately once I clicked on a group, I could find no way to return to the full set of contacts (and I’ve raised a bug ticket with Skype on this).
UPDATE – 3/25/11: It turns out…
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VoiceOnTheWeb Reviews Skype 5.2 For Windows
Continue Reading: VoiceOnTheWeb Reviews Skype 5.2 For WindowsOver on his VoiceOnTheWeb site, Jim Courtney wrote up a good review of Skype 5.2 for Windows that was recently released. Jim’s summary: subtle window dressings.It’s interesting to read… consider the subtle shift of moving the “Video call” button over to the left so that is the first button:
No longer having any Windows systems in my home office, I’m not running Skype 5.2 so I appreciate Jim’s review. Do check it out!
UPDATE: – Shortly after I published this, Jim Courtney came out with a second post about Skype 5.2 explaining some changes to dialing PSTN numbers.
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How To Set A Skype Chat So That New Arrivals See (Some) Chat History
Continue Reading: How To Set A Skype Chat So That New Arrivals See (Some) Chat HistoryWould you like to make it so that when you add someone to a Skype chat they automagically see some of the recent history of the chat? So that people joining a team or a project can rapidly come up to speed on what has been discussed?This turns out to be ridiculously easy to do in a Skype group chat. An administrator for the chat simply has to type in the chat window:
/set options +HISTORY_DISCLOSED
After this, anyone joining the chat will see recent history. Per Skype’s FAQ on chat commands:
Joiners can see the conversation that took place before they joined. The limit that they can see is either 400 messages or two weeks of time, depending on which is reached first.
I’ve enabled this setting on a number of chats for which I am an admin, and it’s definitely helped newcomers come up to speed on what is being discussed in the chat. (Of course, some of those chats are very busy and so 400 messages may only take you back a very short period of time.)
Note, again, that you must be an administrator of a Skype chat for this command to actually execute. You…
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How To Use IRC-style Commands In A Skype Chat
Continue Reading: How To Use IRC-style Commands In A Skype ChatMany folks who are new to using Skype for group chat may not be aware that Skype brings along some of the commands that are popular in IRC chat systems – and the general “/” style of commands used in IRC. To see the list of commands, simply go into any Skype chat (it could even be a chat with only one other person) and type the following command:/help
This will work on old and new versions of Skype and will give you a list of what commands are available:
Available commands: /add [skypename] /help /topic [new topic] /me /history /leave /goadmin /get creator /get role /whois [skypename] /setrole [skypename] MASTER|HELPER|USER|LISTENER /kick [skypename] /kickban [skypename] /get guidelines /set guidelines [text] /get options [text] /set options [[+|-]flag] ... /setpassword [password] [password hint] /clearpassword /get password_hint /set password_hint [text] /set password [text] /get banlist /get allowlist /set banlist [[+|-]mask] ... /set allowlist [[+|-]mask] ... /alertson [text to match] /alertsoff /call [skypename[,skypename,...]]
You simply type any of these commands into a chat and, assuming you have permission to run the command, the action will occur. The full list of commands and options is available at this URL:
http://www.skype.com/go/help.chathelp
If you are the…
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Video: Skype’s Own Professionally-Created Interview About Skype And Citrix
Continue Reading: Video: Skype’s Own Professionally-Created Interview About Skype And CitrixAt EnterpriseConnect last week in Orlando, I was walking down one of the hallways and encountered a rather elaborate setup for shooting video:Turns out that Skype was shooting their own video interview about the Skype / Citrix partnership which they have now posted on YouTube:
Obviously no comparison in quality to my own video interview which was shot with a handheld video camera 🙂 Nicely done, Skype…
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