March 2006

If you have never seen, tried or heard of WiSPA before, WiSPA is a great add-on for Skype that enables you to keep in touch with your emails, Skype IMs, voice mail etc when you are traveling and away from your PC.

Simply tell WiSPA what’s important to you and it will send an SMS notification when it arrives to you mobile phone. Then phone your SkypeIn number and WiSPA will use text to speech to read back your message.

You can also ring your SkypeIn number and listen to all your emails, voice mails, IM etc so you need never be out of touch again.

Continue reading "WiSPA for Skype" »

I drank several beers and a bottle of wine last night and today I am paying a heavy price for my indulgence.

One of the cats brought a mouse in last night so I had to go out for a walk down to the woods to release it. I know your thinking why didn’t I just throw it out in the garden or the street, I’ve tried that and they just bring it back and make a point of leaving it somewhere where I will find it.

That started me off on an alcohol induced eBay spending spree. I had this fantastic idea to buy a mouse cage where I could store mice until I get a chance to release them. Think of it as being a mouse hotel. I looked on eBay and found some fantastic cages, with little walk ways and separate compartments to “help stimulate their natural living conditions and provide you with hours of fun”. How can you resist advertising like that? Certainly not me. Fortunately I didn’t win one.

For some reason I also though I needed a Ninja Sword, it seem like the perfect gift and last night I had to have one, fortunately I didn’t win that either.

I did however win a new toilet seat, some hot chilly plant seeds and a pet fountain for the cats, complete with “re-circulating water supply increasing oxygenation to provide fresh tasting, cool, filtered water with a multitude of health benefit”. Apparently cats like that kind of thing.

I also have a bid in for some wooden pots for the garden, I’m hoping that I get out bid on those very soon.

Have a great weekend, I have to go, I have some PayPal transactions to complete.

One of the reasons to launch the new Developer Zone was the need to get our developer resources a bit better organised. We’ll continue with this “housekeeping” project, but obviously it takes time.

Here’s a brief (and possibly incomplete) list of online resources Skype has made available to our developer community:

• Skype Developer Zone (https://developer.skype.com/) — this is what we hope to become the “web home” of Skype developer community. Developer Zone contains:
  • documentation and tutorials;
  • some developer downloads;
  • information about our developer support and certification programs;
  • developer wiki that all community members can edit; and
  • issue tracker (jira) used to track support requests, bug reports, enhancement suggestions, and product certification requests.

• Skype Developer Blog (http://share.skype.com/sites/devzone/) — the place where you’ll find news about Skype’s technologies as well as recent innovations of our developer community.
• Skype Extras Gallery (http://share.skype.com/directory/) — the place where you can find various third-party applications that work with Skype, as well as publish your own.
• Skype Forums (http://forum.skype.com/) — the public place for exchanging opinions about Skype. The forums are divided into subforums according to topics including Skype API, Skype Toolbars, and SkypeWeb.

In addition to the ones listed above, there are several websites dedicated to third-party applications and tools.

Note that while you can already use your Skype Name and password to log in to Developer Zone, Extras Gallery, and blog, you still need a separate user account for contributing to the forums.

P.S. As for the Java wrappers for the Skype Public API — they’re all created by talented people outside Skype.

A couple of days ago I blogged about Video Snarf, yesterday before leaving to go to the office I just happened to be sitting in front of my home PC and as I had it installed I decided to enable it and to protect my desk. I’m not 100% sure what I was protecting it from but it seemed like a good plan at the time.

Continue reading "Cat burgler" »

This morning I bet there are lots of happy Arsenal fans around, I’m certainly one of them. I was looking in my buddies list for some Italians to taunt, especially if they were Juventus fans, but they all seem to be keeping a low profile this morning.

We have to go to Turin to play the away leg yet, but let me have my moment of glory.

Developer Zone
We are moving away from our old Developer Zone website and have a new home. Actually it’s an intermediate step to where we want to be but it’s an improvement on what we have already.

You can access the new Developer Site at https://developer.skype.com/ so take a look.

One of the new things you will notice is now you can raise a developer support incident, report bugs, or even suggest improvements to Skype (Support Page).

For a while when browsing the site you will be passed around the new and the old site but we are working on bringing all the old content across.

Take a look and let us know what you think!

Here we are at the start of another week. I was kind of hoping to have won the lottery over the weekend as the weather here has been awful with constant rain. I have decided that I want to go and live by the beach in Brazil. My heart is set on a place that is right on the beach, private swimming pool, huge garden and a lovely house.

I want to grow coconuts and bananas in my garden, perhaps grapes as well so I can make my own wine.

I have Skype in numbers for UK, USA, and Brazil so I am pretty sure I could sneak away unnoticed and come back once a month for a visit to the office. I’m not sure how I would explain the tan but that’s just a technicality.

Well that’s my dream, but that got shattered on Saturday night when my lottery numbers weren’t picked.

API Contest
Just to clarify the API Contests finishes on the 15th April and not the 31st March so you still have 3 weeks to get in an entry.

I’m kind of worried that we don’t have a lot of entries right now. I’m told that most people will wait for the end of the deadline to submit their entry, which is fine.

I am going to make an official rule change to the contest.

Currently there are 3 categories, each with 1st prize of €2,000 and 5 runner up prizes of €500.

In the event of a category not having enough entries to distribute the entire prize fund, then the remaining prize money will be allocated to a special category.

Any application in the extras gallery will be eligible to enter this category and entry will be automatic.

In plan English, if there are not enough entries to give away all the money, then I will look at what new cool applications (regardless of category) have been entered into the extras gallery and award them special prizes.

So if you have been building an application and it doesn’t fit into App2App, eBay Integration or Voice Services then get it in before 15th April and you may, depending on entries be able to take part in the contest.

Just got out of a session on the MS Office Live Communicator. Focus was especially on integrating Live Communicator into your own web pages and client applications.

If you have read my other posts on this conference you will know that I am deeply impressed by Office 2007 in general. However Live Communicator is frankly not a good application!

A few short points:

• API MUCH more limited than Skype’s

• Only for internal use - all users must be connected to a Live Communications Server

• Draconian security settings combined with a number of - “you must download this ActiveX” for this to work at all!

• A callto: link only opens the dialling window - it does not actually dial the phone number.

The main focus of the session, though is interesting: Contextual communication. MS wants 3rd party developers to integrate this into their own applications. So when users collaborate on, say a loan application, they will have the online status of the loan officer, general manager and president of loans (or whatever) right in the interface for approving the loan application.

Very nice idea, but let me tell you - this is easier, quicker and more powerful to do in Skype! imho ;-)

It is easier now with the new ActiveX-components (soon to be properly documented and published) and the Skype Web technology and it will continue to become more powerful.

There are a few applications around at the moment that enable you to share your desktop with another user via Skype. Unyte from WebDialogs is a great example as it enables you to share your desktop and applications with both Skype users and non Skype users.

I blogged about the Nyanyan virtual desktop camera a month or so ago, at the time it was in Alpha and a little bit flakey working perfectly on one machine and killing Skype on the other.

Yuusei Kuwana, the developer out in Japan has released another version with some improvements that not only fixes my crash but also enables you to share areas of your desktop or individual applications with Skype users.

Continue reading "Desktop Sharing" »

Just got out of a session on the new features for developers in Outlook 2007. I am very excited about it. Can’t wait until MS releases this - it will allow me to do things that have previously been deep level hacks in a simple and supported way. For example we can now customize the Outlook form to add a Skype section there.

Also we could add a custom task pane to Outlook both in the inspector and in the explorer windows. A Skype task-pane would let use make Skype much more obvious and accessible in the environment where you work. The custom task panes also exist in the rest of Office too.

A key finding for me in this conference is that MS is focusing very heavily on collaboration. Communication is not a primary focus but only comes into play in the collaboration context. For business users (which is a large portion of our users) this is relevant thinking. This is without a doubt an area where we need help from 3rd party developers and ISV:s.

The Skype ActiveX components will of course help with making that kind of integration easier - but we do have a lot of work to do.

Today I listened to Bill Gates talk about the next version of Microsoft Office - v 2007.

Seems most things will change:

• File formats will be zipped xml files
• Ribbons instead of toolbars and menus - looks very nice!
• FrontPage will be renamed SharePoint Designer

Two other intersting points:

1. A demonstration of a custom built CRM-system - just as last year!
2. eBay shopping addin for Outlook 2007 was one of the highlights!

Now I am off to the next session: New Office XML File Formats (Introduction)

If you are also at this conference - look me up!

When I travel I often wonder if I am still going to have my TV and valuables when I get back home, or will some drug crazed local have put my window in and ransacked the house. I was burgled a long time ago, those unluckily enough to have gone thought the same thing will know that it’s a though that is always with you.

A burglar alarm is a good idea, but I don’t want the police turning up on my door just because the cat jumped up onto the sofa and set it off.

My ideal Skype application would be a utility that uses the webcam and when it detects movement calls me and shows me the video so I can see if it’s just a cat or a cat burglar

Continue reading "Video Snarf" »

It’s been a long weekend. I arrived home from the US on Thursday around 7am and hibernated for most of the day. The weekend was a mix of feeling tired around 1pm but not being able to sleep until 5am. Getting up this morning at 8am was a bit of a shock to the system.

Anyone that travels will know the worst part a businesses trip comes when you get back… doing the expenses. Figuring out what all those little bits of paper mean and putting them in to date order is the worst task you can imagine.

I got sent a photo this morning by the eBay guys. This is me on the Skype booth.

I got sent a photo this morning by the eBay guys. This is me on the Skype booth.

Developer Conference

My job for today is sort out the Skype track for the eBay Developer Conference in Las Vegas. Skype will have 7 technical tracks and 2 hands on training labs. This is going to be our first highly technical event for developers, so if your looking for technical information and a chance to meet the team then this is the conference to be at.

To find out more about the event take a look here

It’s 4am here in San Jose, but I thought I would get up and do some work so I can try and sleep on the flight home.

Yesterday we had an Innovations Day at eBay. The day was to show eBay employees what applications people are building using the various API’s from eBay, Skype and PayPal.

As well as me talking we had a number of partners from the eBay world showing off their products. I caught up with a few of them to tell them how they can add Skype in to their solutions and make them even better.

The Skype booth was extremely popular with a good number of people hanging around to watch me demo.

My demos included:

Skype toolbars for FireFox (dial numbers directly from a webpage)
SkypeWeb (show your presence on the web)
Pamela (digital assistant for Skype)
AVACON for Skype (streams video to your avatar, great for 4 people video conferencing)
WiSPA (make Skype calls from any phone, get SMS notifications of IMs to your mobile )
Gizmoz (show yourself as a 3d avatar)

(You’ll find them all in the extras gallery)

My bus arrives in the next few hours (ok 4) so I have pack my bags and be ready.

I found a little time today to work my way though my growing inbox.

Most of it has been spam.

40 were spam relating to stock that is about to go though the roof.

20 were from people looking to share $25,000,000 - $50,000,000 that they had recently embezzled from their local bank, government, or employer. (Ironic how they are always looking for an honest person they can trust to share it with).

50 were to reconfirm my account details as my account had recently been, suspended, accessed from a remote location, had a fraud attempt etc. I do get tired of these ones. Don’t EVER fall for these, under no circumstances are the genuine

5 were for offers of Viraga. Pretty low as my spam filter is good at catching these.

Disappointingly I didn’t win any $50,000,000 lotteries that I never entered this month.

20 emails were from people trying to get on the SkypeWeb beta program.

For those that missed it, SkypeWeb is out there and is live already, there is no more beta program. If you want to use SkypeWeb then make sure you are using the latest version of Skype, and see my previous post for how to get started. look here

Probably more of interested to those in Italy, http://www.suskype.com/ have gone live with an Italian Skype enabled business portal that uses Google Earth to pinpoint Skype enabled businesses. This is actually a pretty good idea as you can see who is in your area and chat to them before you buy.

I like these kinds of mash-ups, if you have created any let me know.

The 2.0 Skype enabled toolbars for FireFox are now availiable from http://www.skype.com/download/skypewebtoolbar/

Finally, the Developer API contest closes in 4 weeks, so don’t forget to get your entry in if you want to a chance to win €2,000.

2 more days and I go home. Wooohoooo.

Well I don’t normally post on a Sunday, but US TV has driven me to the PC. Yeah OK sorry if you are from the USA, but commercials are meant to be a break from the programs, not the other way around.

So many off you have contacted me with ideas for dishwasher meals, not just simple meals, but entire recipes that would make a cordon blur chief weep.

Unfortunately my fridge here in the hotel only has a few fish fingers, chicken pieces and some eggs so I can’t them out, but I did forward them on to wife.

Our dishwasher at home is broken but I might just get it fixed to try out some of these ideas.

Several people have IM’ed me to see if I saw the Thierry Henry goal today, I downloaded something from the internet that streamed the game to my PC from Japan. It was a bit jumpy. But mMy recollection of the game is, someone kicked the ball, the app froze for 20 seconds, and then the next thing it knew it was 2-1 and players were running around happy. So no is the answer no. NO NO NO I missed it. At times like these you are glad for a job that has travel.

Arsenal are my biggest and only hobby. But hey the important thing is the result. It’s not the watching and enjoying.

App2App tracer

While I am here lets not waste the opportunity to talk about a cool application.

One of the most popular applications it the extras gallery is the Skype tracer application. Skype tracer if you are not familiar with it enables you to trace all Skype messages sent to and from the Skype client. If you’re a developer then you need it, full stop, finished, install it now. Get it here

If you are writing App2App messaging application then you need the application from Acutetechnology which promises to do everything that SkypeTracer does but specifically for App2App messaging applications. The sample contains Visual Basic sample code which uses Skype4COM ActiveX component. The program was written using Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition, The code has been written to provide a test bed for investigating the App2App. So if you are writing App2App applications then you need this, http://www.acutetechnology.com/SkypeA2A/index.html

I will do a bit more of a write up on this as it appears to be so useful and you will all need it. Right now my wife has just IM’ed me to say she has found a stray cat which she has adopted and it is keeping her awake. Probably scratching at the cat flap to get out and get home, but they wont be told!

Incidentally I am meeting up with Tory on Tuesday. I’m looking forward to the hangover for the trip home already.

I will give you a laugh at my expense this morning.

The apartment where I am staying has a kitchen so I went shopping for groceries yesterday. I brought a nice chicken for the weekend.

When I opened the oven this morning I found out it wasn’t an oven at all. It’s a dishwasher… doh. I wonder if it possible to boil a chicken in a dish washer, If get bored then I may find out.

For those that emailed for the Skype beta program, I will send out the invitations over the weekend.

Just in case you were thinking I disappeared of the face of the planet

My hotel in San Diego only allowed me to get a wireless connection if I a sat on the floor by the door. Shame really as I had a huge suite complete with bedroom, kitchen and living room and ended up sitting on the floor when I needed to do some work.

I moved out a day early to San Jose. Being an idiot I booked a flight to San Francisco and ended up getting with a $100 bus ride to the hotel. Oh well.

Continue reading "Arrived in San Jose" »

I would like to share a bit of Skype statistics with you: Only 28% of the Skype users has it set to the English language!

That means that localization is extremely important. As I have just added support for all 27 languages to the Skype Web Toolbars I thought I would share a tip:

Continue reading "Localization - tricky but important" »

Yesterday was a long day but I arrived in San Diego safely. I was actually lucky to make it here at all. My flight was a 7:55am so I got up at 4:30am and drove to the airport. I took it nice and slow as it was a bit icy, by the time I arrived and parked the car it was 7:15am so had to dash around like a lunatic to catch the flight.

The first flight took me to Washington were I had a 4 hour stopover before the flight to San Diego. Usually it’s not a problem killing the time as it takes about an hour to get through immigration. Yesterday it took 7 minutes so I had plenty of time to kill.

By the time I arrived at the hotel I was very tired and been awake for about 22 hours, but my luck was in, well partly as I did mange to get a huge suite with a kitchen. So before I went to bed I went out and brought some milk and some cereal for breakfast. This morning I found there were no plates or bowls so I had an ice bucket full of cereal. No better way to start the day.

My internet connection in the room is a bit flaky, it only works if I sit on the floor by the door. 3 inches ether side and it goes away. Still it’s better than the TV.

A few people have contacted me to say that there are some problems with SkypeWeb not working correctly. I have asked the support guys to take a look so we should have a fix or a response very shortly.

It’s funny that Dionyseus posted about the Skype Toolbars after having translating the instructions in to Chinese - http://blog.blogwhy.com/dionyseus/

Yesterday I was working some demos for the Emerging Technologies conference and eBay next week.

I installed the Skype toolbars when they were beta and they had since slipped my mind. I knew they were there but I just never got around to installing them again. Yesterday I did and I have to say I was blown away by how good they are.

If you haven’t already installed them take a look. I love the right click to send the current URL to a Skype buddy. Toolbars

My Japanese counterpart Shinichi Iwata sent me some applications developed by his Japanese community.

I was just having a game of Reversee which uses the App2App messaging API.

Being Japanese it took me a bit of figuring out how to get it going so here are the instructions:

1) When you load the program it will say 0 nodes 0 players on line.
2) After a while it will detect others players (if any) and change to display more nodes and players. When it does this you can click Play -> Start and it will list the players it has found. (I don’t know what a node is, if you work that out let me know).

I copied the file here

I also received a Japanese <-> English translator application though I am struggling with this one and haven’t been able to get it to work. But if you want to take a look you can find it here

I happen to know the guy that wrote both these applications, his name is Shinichi Nakamoto. He is the ultimate party animal, I have had hangovers that lasted weeks after a night out with him. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

Sunday I am off to the US but at least San Diego is warmer. Yesterday we had snow here.

Have great weekends.

Skype Video is great for conference calls so your friends can see you, Skype Avatars are great to express you mood and to put some color into your profile.

So what do you get when you cross Video with an Avatar?

Continue reading "AVACON for Skype" »