I posted a question to Skype technical support (I made sure that it wasn’t already answered in their Knowledge Base). It took over two weeks, but they did get back to me. Better late than never I guess. Honestly, whenever I fill in one of those web forms, I’m sure I’m sending my question into a black hole. I didn’t expect Skype to get back to me, but they did. So, if you’re not in any kind of hurry, go ahead and ask away.
As usual, Carolyn Schuk over at Voxilla writes a great post summarizing Skype’s appeal to business users. The bottom line is that today, Skype works well for a “small workgroup to increase productivityâ€, but it just doesn’t bring it for all around business-class communications.
Kath over at WordofTech.com introduces us to her new blog with a post reminding us that “hell hath no fury like a dissatisfied woman consumer”. With Christmas right around the corner and visions of Mylos dancing in our heads, these are wise words.
Thanks Kath for your insights! Keep them coming…
Â
This is my first post in awhile. I checked out during the holidays (for me the “holidays” consist of the day the kids are out of school ’til the day they go back–that’s a week from now). But my-o-my, the blogging community has been going strong, even over the break. I guess the VOIP world waits for no woman. All hail the tireless VOIP bloggers…through rain, sleet, snow, etc. etc. Andy blogged from Frankfurt on Christmas Eve, PhoneBoy survived a major storm and power outage, and I can see at glance that instead of sleeping in or sleeping it off, many bloggers, Ted Wallingford among them, had something to say on New Years Day. Alec Saunders generated a great list of top VOIP bloggers if you want to keep up with these guys.
As for me, I’m excited in the near term about trying the Nokia N80i (just out the box, yippee!), FINALLY diving into iotum, and hopefully getting a new Canadian GrandCentral number.
So where have I been? Somewhere between snowball fights, Christmas shopping, and my other job I missed the fact that there’s another VOIPGirl in town. But thanks to some blogger friends, I’m up to speed.
Did you ever play nicky-nicky-nine-door as a kid? You know, like run up and ring a doorbell and then take off, hide behind a bush, and wait for something to happen? Kind of like Andy Abramson, Phoneyboy and Ted Wallingford. Ding, Dong VOIPGirl!
But hey, that’s all right. I think the more of us (gals) there are writing about this geeky stuff (VOIP), the better off you (guys) are. Why, between Carolyn Schuk over at Voxilla, Cate O’Malley and myself (and I consider myself honored to be in such company), we’re kind of like the women of web dialing, a trio of VOIP trialers, the chicks of click-to-call, the ladies of lose-your-landline …Well you get the idea.
So welcome Cate. The posts are flying over there at VOIP News so check her out!
I was following the thread started by PhoneBoy and SightSpeed’s Peter Csathy about the obvious advantages of communicating with someone in person. Facial expressions, hand gestures, and body language are huge non-verbal cues that say a lot. But, when face time isn’t an option, then real-time video calling (using SightSpeed of course) is the next best thing. Peter himself runs his Berkeley-based team from San Diego, and couldn’t do so effectively without SightSpeed. PhoneBoy agrees and thinks that SightSpeed rocks, “Almost like being there”.
But, I’m curious to know if the folks who use SightSpeed today are making spontaneous or pre-planned calls. I confess that when I use it, it’s usually a planned thing. I’ll email or text someone and say, “OK to SightSpeed you now?”, or IÂ pre-arrange a call at a certain time.
My guess is that live video from the desktop is still so new that people hesitate at “surprising” someone with a video call. Unless of course you’re The SightSpeed Guy. You may want to check out his latest blog post. He’s wearing a tie. Must be the staff Christmas lunch.
I’ve been playing catchup a little this week so I’m reading the flurry of posts that started with SightSpeed’s Peter Csathy on Video as the Next Big Thing in Social Networking. Luca Filigheddu and Ken Camp had some interesting things to say. However, PhoneBoy really put it together for me.
First, he says that until video is literally built in everywhere, like right in my laptop or as part of a web site, the masses on the whole may not bother. I see this already in my efforts to get friends and family to join SightSpeed. After all, it’s free, it works, and it’s easy. What’s the holdup? Seems that my friends are either a little suspicious of something FREE off the Internet (what’s the catch) or they simply don’t have a webcam. Why can’t they could just rush down to Staples immediately and spend $40 on a web cam and some gel pens? Not everyone’s a Staples geek like me. If the technology isn’t right there staring them in the face, it’s not a priority.
Phoneboy goes on to say that even if technology catches up and “the ability to do video is as ubiquitous as a mobile phone”, people may still not use it to interact on the Internet. It depends on what you have to say and how you want to say it. For example, I can convince my parents to use SightSpeed because they see huge value in the ability to see and talk to their kids in other cities. My friends are lukewarm on the idea of video calling me just to chat because it seems unnecessary (and they can’t do dishes or look for car keys at the same time).
That said, I’m still trying to get friends, family and colleagues into my SightSpeed network. I may have to resort to webcams as Christmas presents. Because SightSpeed has a great feature that lets you email video messages, I’m just gonna video mail them until a) they tell me to stop, or b) give in and try it.
Yes, I just bought a new headset. So when I read about Jajah’s new No Headset movement, I thought, ‘forget it Leanne, you can’t win’. They even have a web site: http://www.noheadset.com. You can check out flicks of people trashing their headsets. (I’m not going to slapshot my shiny new $100 headset thanks.)
However, my take on this campaign can be summarized by their new tag line "If You Liked Skype, You’ll Love JAJAH". It’s a way to put themselves in the same league as Skype but also to differentiate in a way that says we do what Skype does and we do it better. Unlike Skype, JAJAH lets you make internet calls using your regular desktop phone, which is great. But, don’t some people choose headsets because they want to be "handsfree"? If that’s the case, blowing up your headset would be BAD. Whatever.
It’s been about a year since I bought my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop and I’ve really loved it, except for one little thing that’s become a big annoying problem. When I have a headset plugged in, I quite often hear squealch-like static that renders the conversation inaudible. Calls I’ve had on SightSpeed and Skype have been plagued by this problem, and until now I always put it down to cheap headset hardware. Instead it turns out to be a Dell design flaw. My searches on the Dell forums indicate that it’s been more than just me experiencing this static and the culprit seems to be a wonky bit of wiring in the headset jack.
So, I’ve broke up with analog headsets forever and purchased a Plantronics DSP-400 folding USB headset. So far so good. It’s a wired headset and costs about $100.
Some wireless headsets worth a look if you’re having a similiar Dell moment is the Plantronics CS-50 USB Wireless Headset, Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth Headset, or the Plantronics Audio 910 Bluetooth headset. All are pricey but going wireless may be worth it.
The intrepid Tom Keating reviews two headsets here:
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/headsets/plantronics-audio-910-headset.asp
Bloggers like Andy and Phoneboy have made mention of Gizmo Project growing pains and bugs. Sometimes timing is everything because I was just thinking that. Well, maybe I’m feeling a little cranky today. I haven’t seen the problems Andy and Phoneboy have, but I do see other Gizmo-related errors and general “not responding” messages regularly, and it’s getting me down.
I’ve also never been able to get GizmoCall to work for me at all despite numerous pleas to tech support and the forums. I reported on it’s launch but was waiting to give a user opinion. Never happened. I really think that Gizmo is going in the right direction with the additional services like SMS, web calling, integration with other IM networks. I recently decided to use Gizmo as my primary chat interface since I can integrate with MSN,Yahoo, Google, and others. A new features lets you import your MSN contact list into Gizmo at one shot instead of laboriously one by one. And Gizmo is SO easy to set up with the Nokia N95 which means I can use it to make mobile internet calls.  I also use Gizmo to handle all my incoming calls through GrandCentral. Another big plus.
When the sun is shining you can overlook application not responding and other weirdness. But you can also get tired of making excuses. Sigh. I feel it’s kind of like a great outfit, love the color, the style, looks good on me, perfect for the occasion, but it doesn’t quite fit right.
