Thursday, February 23, 2006

Skype

In Lithuania IRC really got popular, especially the aitvaras network, but for some time now, when people start using different chatting alternatives, about which hardcore IRC users don't really speak with a smile in their face. But in my opinion, alternatives have different good things, same as bad too. This time I will present Skype. I think that Skype is a well written application and what is great, that it is available for free, but it is closed source, I think that is good, it is much harder to crack it or to integrate a virus and stuff, I mean much better for security issues of the user. You don't need to pay for it or search for any cracks and serial numbers if you can't afford buying software.

Skype is very comfortable and it thinks about the user and his convenience, it is quite fast and very stable, I never had any problems using Skype. Skype has a chat, contacts, who see you online or offline, what is superb, that usually there are 2 or 4 millions users online from all the world. But that is not the point, you have your privacy and they can't see when you're online or offline unless you set the Skype me mode. The main thing Skype is used, is VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) usage, you can call other people, who are using Skype, it is like phone calls on the Internet, but what is wonderful, that there is a feature to call to ordinary phones and cells, but it is not free, but really is quite cheap all you need to do is use SkypeOut. Remember, that calling emergency calls is not working, because it is not a phone alternative. One of the feature which is very useful, it is voice mail, which you can use when you're offline or away/busy from your computer.

Skype works on most of the popular Operating Systems, such as Windows, Linux, MacOSX, PocketPC.. It is very easy to use, if you want to speak, you need to have a microphone, also it can send and receive video, but you'll need to install an webcam, the quality is not the best, but it works and it depends from the camera it self, but the sound has really big quality and furthermore everything is very secure, the talks too, because an hashing method is used while sending the data. One more serious feature is file transfer, it is really very fast and comfortable and works between different platforms, the sizes of the files is not relevant, but what I miss is the resume ability, because sometimes the file transfer freeze and you need to resend the file from the beginning again.

Well, I am just offering to use this "another chatting software", I liked it due to I often forget that I am talking with some one on IRC, because I am quite busy doing something else, like programming or reading and while chatting on Skype it is almost impossible to forget about it. I would like to add, that it is possible to talk with a lot of people, not only in private, the same are with calls. A lot of who started using Skype for business and really managed to lower their expenses for telephone bills, due to the sound quality is high and all the frequency are used which are heard by the human ear and letters C and S will be two different letters and will not sound like one. This kind of things worked earlier too, we saw it on television, but never it was so easy accessible for regular users, Skype made it possible and they don't ask anything from us, no money, no ads, what is just glamorous that there are now spyware, viruses and even Spam! No Spam! but I have heard about some viruses, so be careful, but don't really worry, just look who you add to your contacts and don't do wild things with your webcam :D

More at Skype website.

1 Comments:

Blogger Quatrux said...

Skype was improved a lot during these period of time, but I can't say that something really new appeared and I don't think that something really new could appear anymore. Skype 3 version is already out, even though it is in beta stage yet, but I don't think that it will last for long; the only new feature I saw is the Live chat, where you can create your conference by your subject and others can connect and listen or talk with you..

9:18 PM  

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