Skype tips

UPDATE: See also this post.

Alert Reader has passed along a site devoted to tips for getting the most out of Skype. Very useful, and we’re properly grateful. From the site:

Skype is fast becoming one of the fastest growing Internet applications. Already claiming roughly 4% of all international phone traffic, 800,000 SkypeOut users and 22 million+ Skype users in less than a year.

Voice over IP or ‘VoIP’ is becoming a very popular solution for communication, just as the Cell Phone did years ago. The goal of this site is provide relevant news, tips, tricks and information what Skype can be used for and how best to exploit it and use Skype not just on your computer or PocketPC, but use it without having to sit in front of your computer.

* Did you know you can use Skype without sitting at your computer?
* Did you know that you can use Skype with the same telephone you use for regular telephone calls?
* Did you know you can have an answering machine with Skype?
* Did you know Skype makes a great addition to a Video Call?
* Did you know Skype can call almost any cell or telephone in the world?
* Did you know you can rely on Skype enough to cancel your home telephone and long distant service and save significant money on your phone costs?
* Did you know you can use your cell phone to send messages to a Skype user?

Questions like these and how to get the most out of Skype is what this site is all about. We use Skype everyday and have learned all the tips and tricks to getting the most out of Skype and VoIP.

Here is an article discussing “Why Skype – compared to other VoIP solutions”

Phone-company pressure from Skype et al.

Man, I love Skype, and not just for this:

Competition in the phone business, intensifying this year as Internet-based calling has taken root, has reached the point where many industry experts are anticipating an era of remarkably cheap and even free calls.

That era would be built on a vast migration of phone service from traditional networks to the Internet, where the calls become just another way to use Internet connections that consumers are paying for anyway.

“People are going to look at voice communications as something they expect to get for free,” said Henry Gomez, general manager of Skype, which eBay bought last year for $2.6 billion. The company usually charges a few cents a minute for calls from computers to regular phones, but in May it eliminated those fees through the end of the year for users in the United States and Canada. …

Online services like Skype that offer free calls from computer to computer for users with headsets have attracted the tech-savvy and are trying to push into the mainstream. In the process, they are dragging down everyone else’s prices and pointing the way toward a time when it will be harder and harder for companies to charge anything for a basic home phone line on its own.

There are signs that changes in the business of calling are also altering the way people use these voice services. Mr. Gomez said some Skype users take language classes over the phone, unconcerned about the length of their calls. He has also heard of parents going out and leaving their child with a babysitter, but using the free voice link as a baby monitor to listen in on their child’s room.

“When the cost is so little, you start to see people using voice differently,” he said.

Editorial supporting Nevada initiative to legalize marijuana

You can read the editorial here. From the Lahontan Valley News; June 20, 2006:

Nevada voters will once again take up a marijuana ballot initiative this fall, an issue muddied in rhetoric from both sides. The Regulation of Marijuana Initiative will appear on ballots in November. It would allow those 21 years old and older to legally possess, use and transfer one ounce or less of marijuana. Penalties are also stiffened for those who drive under the influence of marijuana or sell it to minors. Use in public would be prohibited.

For a $1,000 annual license fee, state-licensed retailers would be able to sell marijuana. An excise tax of $45 per ounce would be collected by the state from wholesalers. Sales tax would be the same as other products. Half of the profits from related licensing fees and taxes would be used for substance abuse treatment and education.

It’s time to pass this multi-pronged approach to marijuana regulation and end years of speculation and fruitless debates.

More fun

Be Jackson Pollack. Clicking changes the color. I just stumbled upon this.

Monday cat: Somebody needs a hug

I stumbled across this photo on the Web and found it charming. Now I can’t find the origin, but it seemed a very good photo for a Monday.

UPDATE: If you like the above, you’ll probably also like this.