January 2006

Answer: When it’s a YapperMouse.

In my post bag this morning I received on one of the new YapperMouse phones.

Continue reading "Question: When is a mouse not a mouse?" »

Have you ever wondered where all the Skype users are located, and if there are any Skype users in your local area?

Using Google Earth an enterprising developer called Yahagi from Japan has come up with a way for you to add your location details to a map and find out who is around you.

Continue reading "Now this is cool…" »

You might have noticed that the Skype Web Toolbars are getting better at recognizing phone numbers in web pages. We have done a lot of work in this area and now we are (almost) ready to share it with the world!
Do you need to recognize or clean up phone numbers to make Skype phone calls? PNR is your friend!

Continue reading "PNR - The black magic behind phone number recognition" »

We made a few changes to the way SkypeWeb works so the video is slightly out of date.

Continue reading "Changes to SkypeWeb" »

My interview with Dick Schiferli from Pamela-Systems didn’t happen as Dick is suffering with a cold, so we have postponed for a couple of days while he recovers. Having just got over a cold I know how he feels.

I was in a video making mood however so I recorded a 10 minute intro to SkypeWeb, so if you haven’t signed up for the beta then you will know what it is all about.

I made the video flash based so it should be viewable to Linux and Mac users. (I’m learning not to forget you guys). You can watch it here.

The final WebCam goes to Umasankar Yogeswaran who is a huge Wigan fan and sent me a picture of him in Wigan football top to prove it. A webcam is on its way out to you in Taipei. I am guessing you don’t get too many of their games :-)

Err I should say that you have to be either living in Wigan with a Wigan postal address where I can ship the webcam to, or prove you are a Wigan fan by sending a picture of yourself wearing a Wigan football shirt.

I am surprised that one no one has opted for a PhotoShop mockup yet, or at the very least, how do I know what you look like :-)

I have had a few entries with “The JJB Stadium, St Andrew’s Street, Wigan, WN5 0UZ” as the answer. This is the address of the stadium but that’s not the correct answer I was looking for.

Wow I had an amazing response to the webcam give away, and it was so hard to choose some winners.

However 7 of you must win so here are the lucky 7.

Continue reading "Webcam Winners" »

I was trying to think of a clever competition to win one, but to be honest they are freaking me out. Having 1 webcam on top of your PC you start to wonder who is looking at you, having boxes of them spread around the office it feels like a million pairs of eyes watching your every move. So they have to go before I become a paranoid wreck.

If you think you deserve one, then either post your reason why here, or send an IM to SkypeDevBlog. I’ll judge those I feel most worthy.

Each webcam also comes with a handy 60 minutes of SkypeOut calls so you can call your friends on landlines.

I am very happy to announce that Andres Kaasik joined Skype in the first week of 2006. He is an experienced object oriented programmer using mostly c++. Since graduating from Tallinn Technical University in 1995 he has been working as a consultant. Most developers will know him as the developer of the “not-for-free” com-wrapper for the Skype API: SkypeX. Andres will be part of an enthusiastic toolbars team. Having him with us will ensure higher quality toolbars and also more re-usable components. Especially components and tools that other developers can use (yes, that does mean you!) Finally he is good at writing code samples and documentation, so you can expect to see some of that from his (rapidly typing) fingers soon. Watch this space!!

Wow, when I came into the office this morning and saw how many emails that had arrived over the weekend I wondered what had happened. Fortunately my inbox rules kicked in and 95% of them were for the SkypeWeb beta so an automatic reply went out.

Remember the email alias for getting on the beta is SkypeWeb@skype.com the other email address is for people who have installed the beta and are using SkypeWeb and want to tell us about it to take part (potentially) in any activities when we launch in February.

Support questions for SkypeWeb should be posted in our forum http://forum.skype.com/viewforum.php?f=37 so our SkypeWeb team are aware of the problems and issues. It’s the best place to get your questions answered and address your comments/concerns. We want as much feedback as possible to make the lauch a success.

I know Mac and Linux users are upset that they don’t have the functionality. The good news is SkypeWeb is part of the core Skype libraries, so putting the features in to Mac and Linux shouldn’t be to far away. It’s just a matter of extending the UI to support the opt-in / opt-out functionality. I’m not going to commit to when, but I would say don’t panic.

Those that signed up for SkypeWeb information will be pleased to hear that you are about to receive the details on how to take part in the SkypeWeb beta.

Continue reading "SkypeWeb Beta is here!" »

SkyNS
Have you ever wanted to share photos with your friends, sure you can send them the file but SkyNS is an App2App messaging application that enables you to share your photo album with your Skype buddies.

The nice guys at Iiris have even provided the Python source code for you to look at.

You can download from here

SkyTunes
It’s always good to get submittals from our regular friends, Kevin Delaney from Khaos Labs (the guys behind the ActiveS library and the TickTacToe game, Noughts and Crosses to you and me) have submitted an iTunes/Winamp Now Playing Mood Changer app called SkyTunes. They also provide details on how you can download the source code.

You can download from here

Jobs at Skype
I often get questions about jobs at Skype. Yep we are hiring and you can find the list at Jobs

There are a few jobs that are not on the list yet. One of them is a developer evangelist role, speaking at conferences, building sample applications, building/running training courses, creating video programs + much more. So keep an eye out for that one :-)

I am feeling much better now, thanks for all your Skype messages.

Last year we ran several highly successful Skype events in California, London and Tokyo. With the New Year it’s time to start planning our events for 2006 and where we will be visiting.

So question for you guys, what events do you want from us and which Countries/Cities would you like us to delivery them?

For instance, which do you want?

More high level conferences that cover the business benefits of Skype,
Or
In-depth technical conferences aim at developers.
Or
A conference to see what 3rd parties applications are available for Skype.
Or
Something else

It would be great to get your ideas.

I cant guarantee we can go to your city, but you have a better chance that we will if you tell us where you are.

Feel free to reply here or IM SkypeDevBlog with your thoughts.

The winner of the Icemat headset is… Nick from London. Congratulations one of these super cool headsets will shortly be in the post to you.

If you’re a developer and you still want a shot at winning something, don’t forget that eBay are having a developer contest were you can win a cool $5k. Wouldn’t that come in handy after Christmas?

The contest is running until the end of January and you can get the full details at http://developer.ebay.com/

I arrived home on Friday last week complete with an Estonian flu bug so have been laid up for the last few days. The good news, for me at least is I am starting to feel better; the good news for you is I have finally gotten around to approving some of the submittals to the extras gallery.

Continue reading "Extras Gallery Update" »

While the rest of Skype went out for beers last night and hit the bars in Tallinn, I decided to stay in and watch the football. It was a dull game, oh my so very dull. The worst was I missed a night of drinking to watch it.

I will have to make up for it tonight and drink double.

Continue reading "Who won the Brazilian tee-shirt?" »

Just a quick post today as I am off to the airport for my trip to Estonia.

My phone bill arrived just arrived. The last quarter my bill had £86 worth of phone calls. This time around it was £12.09 thanks to Skype.

That means I have £73.91 to spend at the airport :-) I probably should by a fleece, as Estonia is cold.

I know a lot of people are waiting for news about SkypeWeb. I have lots of emails from people looking for an update. If you signed up to the SkypeWeb@skype.net email alias last year then we should have some news for your very shorly. We were due to put out some news just before Christmas but SkypeWeb wasn’t quite ready for release so got pulled from the 2.0 release.

But rest assured we are almost ready and news will be out very soon.

Entries for the developer of the month contest for December were a bit thin on the ground. December is a bad month for competitions as people are thinking about what presents to buy and what parties to attend.

But we did get our first Python sample from Iiris, which you can find in the extras gallery. So congratulations as a Linksys CTI 200 Skype phone will shortly be on its way to you.

Continue reading "Developer Of The Month - December" »

Just in case you haven’t spotted it yet, Skype 2.0 has now gone gold, you can download the final release version from here.

Triona has been working hard on getting the API documentation ready for you guys to help you take advantage of the new functionality. Take a look here.

Remember that the button style changed with Skype 2.0 so you’ll want to use the new style icons for your applications. You can download them from here.

What’s new in the release?

Better CPU utilisation
Smoother video playback
New and old sounds available. Yes that’s right, if you don’t like the new sounds you can use the old ones.

Finally don’t forget, add SkypeDevBlog to your Skype’s buddies list and you could win a replica Brazilian football top.

It’s hard to believe that this time yesterday I was sitting on the beach with a beer in my hand. This morning was a shock to the system getting up early, braving the cold and walking to the train station.

On the flight back from Brazil I got chatting to the guy sitting next to me, it turns out he is a striker for FC Santos, a team in the Brazilian Premier league. His name was Frontini and he wears the number 20 shirt. He was on his way to the Far East for a loan spell.

FC Santos was where Robinho played before moving to Real Madrid last year. While we are having our sports lesson, Lucio the Brazilian defender who plays for Bayern Munich was sitting just in front of me on the flight.

I was playing Championship Manager for my PSP, so was able to look up Santos and get the all the details on Frontini for him, he was amazed at the amount of detail but wasn’t impressed with his transfer value.

Win a Brazil Football Shirt

If you want to win a Brazilian Football shirt, add SkypeDevBlog to your Skype buddies and I’ll select one name at random sometime next week.

I am trying to ease myself back into the world of working, but finding the worst part about going away is having to deal with your inbox when you return.

I think we are due a developer of the month winner for December as well so I will take a look at that and announce the winner tomorrow, until then I need another strong coffee and another look at my inbox mountain.

The document contains the following information:

• Overview of the Skype API
• Using the Skype API on Windows
• Using the Skype API on Linux
• Using the Skype API on Mac
• Skype protocol
• Skype reference
  • Terminology
  • Commands
  • Objects
  • Object properties
  • General parameters
  • Notifications
  • Error codes

• Skype URI
• Skype release notes
• Skype commands list

Continue reading "API reference for Skype 2.0 (beta) now available" »