October 2007

In October there have been certified the following new software products:

PrettyMay Call Center for Skype

As the name itself says, this is a call center that handles incoming Skype calls, transfers them, also enables to record them and allows callers to leave voicemails. User can visually build call flow, determine which DTMF tone shall take to next node and what shall happen there, and record voice prompts for every node. At first, user can record a welcome message and say there DTMF tones to take caller to the next nodes, and the same also for the next nodes. Finally, there can be added extension nodes that either transfer call to determined Skype or SkypeOut contact (technically create conference with caller and target) or prompt caller to leave a voicemail (not Skype VM but its own, will be recorded to user’s documents). Also an e-mail address can be set where voicemails shall be sent. All call recordings and received voicemails are shown in a list where user can add comments to every item. After all, there can be created various call flows and specified when (what date, weekday and time of day) every flow is effective.

PrettyMay Call Center is a 15 day free trial product. For more information, see http://www.prettymay.net/callcenter/index.htm

Spontania Video Collaboration

An application that enables conference participants to see all the others’ video picture and also request to see and control their applications. To start a call, user can select participants (maximum three) in Spontania’s main window and click “Start”, then a call to these users is initiated and when they answer, they will receive an invitation chatmessage with a link to session. Clicking the link will install an ActiveX client. When all participants have installed it, they can see a new window with their all’s video pictures. They can show or hide their video, also show their open applications or entire Desktop to the others or request the others to show theirs. Remote control can be also provided.

Due to Microsoft security policy, ActiveX client cannot be installed if Skype has been installed under limited account. For more information, see http://www.spontania.com

On October 19, I blogged about a change in the way Skype for Windows handles the attempts from new programs trying to access the public API. The change was implemented in Skype for Windows 3.6.0.159 (beta), released on October 24.

Since then, we’ve received a lot of developer feedback, and continued our internal discussions as well. Based on this additional input, we’ve reached a different solution which I’ll describe in detail below. Having a better solution at hand also means that this interim change will be rolled back and the upcoming gold release of Skype for Windows 3.6 will handle the API access requests exactly as the earlier versions did.

The new solution, for which we don’t have a fixed release date yet, is based on adding central blacklist and whitelist to the already-present local API access control list (ACL). What will happen when an application tries to connect to the Skype client API, depends on which list — if any — the application is on, and whether the user has already allowed or denied it to use the API.

Continue reading "API access authorization revisited" »

In October 2007, Skype announced the launch of the Skype Approved Integrator (SAI) service. Let me explain what a SAI does and is…

Skype is often contacted by partners via our partner enquiry form who need development assistance or technical consulting to help them rapidly create a Skype-centric solution. Sometimes Skype has the bandwidth to help with the basics, and sometimes more – but not necessarily the resource to help every partner build a solution.

This is where SAIs come in. They are existing Skype software partners/developers with proven (more than 12 months) experience of the Skype APIs and software integration. Some SAIs may have less if there a specific skill set we feel is important. Software development is global, but we will work to ensure regional and technology coverage (UI, middelware, core) of SAIs

SAI status is by invitation, not application and SAI status will maintain unless we see an exceptional need to revoke it

Here is the current list of Approved Integrators. Check it out…

It was June 2007 when the Skype Developer Program started looking towards to the following year and began working on the 2008 API roadmap. We decided that instead of only having a round table discussion with our engineering team in Tallinn, we would collect information through different channels to ensure we were listening to all third party requests. One of the most prominent suggestions was about mashups.

We decided to test the waters by introducing a mashup competition around the Skype public API. Within a week of our first meeting programmableweb.com and Skype Journal were supporting and sponsoring the event: Skype’s first Mashup competition from 1st of July until the 31st of August 2007 with a trip to Prague for the winner.

As soon as we announced the competition, we knew it was the right way to progress. Feedback we had received from the developer community, bloggers, analysts and journalists said that by opening up the API to mashups, it gave developers a chance to build even further with Skype. Paul Amery and our team took that point into account and added the concept of “Plug-Out” to the 2008 Roadmap and used the event to launch the new category and development channel around the API.

I’d like to invite you before you continue reading this story to subscribe to our newsletter that way you will be updated with the latest news about Mashups. (Here the last Newsletter)

Continue reading "Mashups development continues" »

Updated on 2007-10-31: This change will be rolled back from Skype for Windows 3.6 gold. A different solution involving centrally managed whitelist and blacklist will be implemented as soon as possible. Read more about this new solution.

Following the outbreak of a worm that affected some users of Skype for Windows, we have decided to change the way applications get access to the public API the Skype client provides.

Presently, when a new application attempts to gain access to the public client API, Skype client presents the user a dialog box, allowing the user to choose whether to deny access, allow this time only, or allow this application to use the API from now on. The worm used the APIs provided by the Windows operating environment to send mouse clicks into appropriate places on this dialog, choosing “allow from now on” and closing the dialog before most users would even notice.

In order to avoid this, we’ve decided to start handling code-signed applications differently from these that are not. For applications that come with a valid code signature (e.g. Authenticode), the handling logic remains unchanged. For non-signed applications, Skype will not pop up a dialog box, but will raise a “missed event” notification instead. The user can then click on the event notification, open the access dialog, and decide what to do next.

This new logic is already implemented in internal test builds and will become available to the larger developer and user community when we release the next public beta version of Skype for Windows 3.6.

Continue reading "Changes in the API access authorization logic" »

The Public API Rference on DevZone is now updated to include new additions that are coming with Windows version 3.6.

Here is an update from Jira, which is our issue tracking system and where all the bugs should end up eventually so that our team could work on fixing them for you.

If you can still reproduce any of the fixed problems below, please add a comment to Jira so that we would know to take another look. If you have additional comments to any known issues, also feel free to add them to Jira. And of course if you have some other problems with the API or Extras, use Jira to let us know about them also.

If interested, please keep on reading.

Continue reading "Known problems and recently fixed bugs from Jira" »

Half a year has passed and now it’s time to start updating certification test specifications again. Specs are updated twice a year, to make sure that all requirements are adequate to real life. Specifications evolve under the eyes of the entire Skype developer community and everyone is welcome to contribute their suggestions for improvement. To give your input, please log in to DevZone and add your suggestions and concerns to the Test Specs 8.01 discussion page. From now you have three weeks to do it.

The first round of input gathering ends on October 26, and the first draft of the next version of test specifications will be published on November 9. Then you’ll have another two weeks to discuss it, and if there are ideas that lead to significant changes in draft then on November 30 another discussion draft will be published. On December 7 we will publish the release candidate of the new specs which will take effect on January 2, 2008.

All software certification requests submitted after end of year 2007 will be tested against the new specs. Note that if you want to add or change something in the specs but do not express yourself now, the next opportunity will be in spring 2008.

When we first announced the Skype public platform roadmap in Prague, I promised that the roadmap will be periodically updated. The month is over, and here’s a summary of what we’ve been doing.

Continue reading "Platform progress: september 2007" »