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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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Stuck With Old Nortel PeriPro Apps? Check Out This Migration Tool…
Continue Reading: Stuck With Old Nortel PeriPro Apps? Check Out This Migration Tool…Did you spend a significant amount of time, money and energy building voice applications with the “Peri Producer” (a.k.a. “PeriPro”) tool formerly owned by Nortel and now by Avaya? Would you like to move away from proprietary lock-in to a standards-based platform with a clear future? Would you like to move your PeriPro app beyond simply voice and add in communication channels like SMS/text messaging, IM, mobile web and even Twitter?If so, do check out what my colleagues within Voxeo have come out with as the “VoiceObjects Migration Manager“:
http://developers.voiceobjects.com/support-training/voiceobjects-migration-manager/
It’s a tool that helps you move those PeriPro apps over onto Voxeo VoiceObjects where they can then work with either Voxeo’s IVR platform or the IVR platforms of about 30 other vendors. My colleague Tobias Goebel put together this screencast that talks about what the migration tool can do:
There was also an hour-long webinar earlier in March where Tobias and Dan Evans discussed the tool at great length and answered many questions from attendees. You can view the webinar and/or download the slides at the jam session page at:
http://blogs.voxeo.com/jamsessions/2011/03/07/jam-session-march-10-2011-peripro-migration-too/
While PeriPro apps were the first type of app to be converted by the VoiceObjects Migration…
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Summary: Links to Posts on Calling Google Voice using SIP
Continue Reading: Summary: Links to Posts on Calling Google Voice using SIPGiven that I’ll be the guest on today’s VUC call in about an hour discussing this topic, here’s a list of some of the posts involved in the recent saga around Google Voice and SIP.On Saturday, March 5, 2011, Todd Vierling pointed out that you could call Google Voice Numbers via a SIP URI:
Unaware of Todd’s post, but seeing mention of this SIP calling in tweets from Aswath Rao and Alok Saboo, I started what became a series of posts on Monday, March 7:
- Google Voice Now Offers SIP Addresses For Calling Directly Over IP
- Did Google Hang Up On Calling Google Voice Via SIP?
- Google Voice Via SIP – It’s Dead, Jim
- Google Voice Via SIP – Not Dead Yet… (The Saga Continues)
wherein the service was working… then it wasn’t… then it was… etc.
At this precise moment in time, the service IS working for me, although when I just tried it took quite some time for my SIP softphone to actually start getting a ring. But the connection did work.
Also of interest, Todd Vierling put up a great post earlier on March 4 about…
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Join Today’s VUC Call at Noon US Eastern To Talk About Google Voice and SIP
Continue Reading: Join Today’s VUC Call at Noon US Eastern To Talk About Google Voice and SIPWant to join a discussion about the whole issue with Google Voice and SIP? And what we might want to really have in terms of SIP interconnect with Google Voice? And, while we’re there, want to talk about the latest changes in the mobile carrier space?If so, join the VUC conf call happening in 90 minutes at 12 noon US Eastern. Randy, the host of VUC, asked me if I would come on as the guest and I did agree. Of course, that was before I was hit with a brutal cold this week… but I’m getting better to the point where I should be able to talk fine (if a bit funny-sounding) on the call.
You can join the live call via SIP, Skype or the regular old PSTN. There is also an IRC backchannel that gets heavy usage during the call. It will be recorded so you can always listen later.
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
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Microsoft Infographic on Mobile Market Shows Compelling Numbers
Continue Reading: Microsoft Infographic on Mobile Market Shows Compelling NumbersEverybody loves an infographic, right? Earlier today Mashable ran a Microsoft infographic about the state of the mobile market. The numbers are quite powerful (click the image to see the full version):I had a huge personal disconnect with one of the stats showing that so many people use their mobile phones for games, simply because I almost never use my phone that way…
Yet I know that many people do and I see that when I’m out and about.
All in all some interesting stats, even if they do have the inevitable promotion of Microsoft Tags, since that was the sponsor of the infographic. (Microsoft Tags being their proprietary mobile tag solution versus the QR codes you see in many places.) Not a bad technique for Microsoft really… create a great infographic with lots of compelling data… and then insert a few little tidbits and links that promote your story.. and then…
… people like me will write about it. 🙂
Regardless, there are some good stats there… kudos to the MS team who put it together.
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
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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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Combined Coverage Map: AT&T and T-Mobile – Montana is Still A Blank Spot
Continue Reading: Combined Coverage Map: AT&T and T-Mobile – Montana is Still A Blank SpotWant to know what the combined coverage of AT&T and T-Mobile would look like on a map? By way of a tweet from Todd Carothers I learned of a post at Fierce Mobile Content that uses maps from AmericanRoamer.com to show what the combined coverage map of the United States would look like. Click on the link or image to see all the various comparison maps:Interesting to see the spectrum holdings of the two companies as well.
Alas, my little pocket of southwestern New Hampshire doesn’t stand to gain much out the merger… we’re still stuck with the limited AT&T coverage we have. At least, though, we’re not up in Montana, where it would appear coverage is close to nonexistent… (and yes, I know that population is minimal up there, too).
Interesting charts…
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
Disruptive Telephony
Dan York on how Voice over IP is rewriting (almost) everything you thought you understood about telephony…