Skype is Cool
For those that don’t know, Skype is teleconferencing software (voice chat) from the same guys that invented Kazaa. It’s good. It’s really, really good. And it’s free.
I know some of you have done internet chat before, and had the same problems everyone did. Quality sucked. Lag was bad. Anytime two people spoke at once, the whole system broke down. It ate up all your bandwidth. It ate up all your processor. It only worked on certain machines, with certain headsets, and was difficult to set up.
I’ve been there, and I know all those things were true.
Not any longer. Skype sounds terrific. Lag is almost non-existent. It is fully â??full duplexâ? (meaning you can both talk at once). I didn’t have a bandwidth meter, but it seemed happy even though I had a pretty mediocre wireless connection downstairs. It used (complete with the rest of the OS) less than 40% of my processor. Skype runs on OS X, Windows, and Linux. In my small sample, it has worked with every microphone or headphones I have tried it with. And it’s a total breeze to set up.
Did I mention that it’s free?
OK, the question you should be asking (at least, the question I was asking) is â??Great, but why are these guys doing this for free?â? Well, if you want, you can call a real telephone from Skype. If you do that however, you have to buy minutes. Their rates are very competitive with international long distance. But all computer to computer communication is totally without charge. Sans fees.
My complete Skype buddy list is currently… one person. If you want to try it out, feel free to give me a call at ender3mc. (It works like an IM client… you have a handle, rather than a phone number) I’ll try to remember to turn it on at night, but you might want to drop me a line or leave a comment if you want me to add you to my list. I won’t have it on during the day, as I don’t want to have Skype on while at work.
Hope I have convinced someone to try it out.