Mac hardware

Five recent bits of Skype Gear and Skype-related miscellanea rounded up on the internets:

1. A Mini-review of the Netgear SPH200D
2. A Frugal Skype Overview
3. A Mac Hardware-Skype Experience
4. A Series of Tubes: The Internet
5. A Catastrophe! The internet crashes.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roundup: 5 bits of miscellanea" »

The Futiro Luna, along with its two siblings the Terra and the Solo, must be the best looking Skype phones going at the moment. And the good design goes beyond the styling; the full telephone keypad has a pleasant key response, the hands-free feature works excellently, and the call quality is second to none.

So it is really good news (especially for the 12.33% of Skypegear readers who read it on a Mac!) that the Luna has now passed certification for use with a Mac. There's not been too many products Mac certified for Skype yet, and hopefully Futiro's other two phones, the Terra and Solo will soon join it. All we need now is a version in white to sit nicely next to the smooth lines of that G5!

The Luna is a corded USB handset, meaning that you just install the driver for the phone, click to allow it to use Skype, and then plug the handset straight into the USB. To make a Skype call, all you need to do is pick up the phone and press the green button. The little up and down buttons allow you to scroll through all of your contacts.

Skypegear reviewed all three phones back in April - see here for the reviews. The Luna retails at £47.95 / E70 from the Skype Store, or is available direct from Futiro for shipping to other parts of the world.

Continue reading "Sexy Futiro Skype phone certified for Mac use" »

Andus Purde over on Skype for Mac blog makes some excellent brief points on which webcams you can Skype with on your Mac. As Andrus observes, "Apple iSight, Philips SPC900NC and Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 are pretty safe bets", but there really are quite different cams you can use for your Mac.

A couple of other points from Andrus:

• Many other cams can be made to work with Skype on a Mac by downloading a suitable driver from http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net. List of cams here.
• Make sure you have at least an 800Mhz processor to run video on your Mac
• Ensure you don't have more than one video window open at any one time, as the cam can only communicate with one application at a time
• Check out the knowledgebase or look at the forums for more information if you're unsure about a particular webcam's compatibility.

Continue reading "Which webcams can I use with Skype on my Mac?" »

Sorry, couldn't resist the oversize Mac photo. Wow that is a thing of beauty.

And now, thanks to Skype Forums moderator extraordinaire Carola Clavo, we have a list of Mac-compatible Skype webcams (so that you can use all of that quad-core computing power to pull silly faces at your mum over Skype). It's not, as she points out, an exhaustive list, so feel free to add any cams that you have found to work OK on the Mac. It should also be pointed out that not all cameras in her list are Skype certified, and so it's worth looking out for the 'Skype certified' logo on the box or website when you're buying.

Continue reading "Compatible Webcams for Mac users and more in the Skype forums" »