Friday's toolbars story sent me spinning off on a magical mystery tour of Skype's Extras pages, where I discovered the Extras Gallery: a kind of open-source playground for voip-savvy techies.

These are the chaps who spend every last nanosecond (one billionth of a second; abbrev. nsec) of their weekend (223,200,000,000,000nsec, based on one weekend comprising the 62 hours from 6pm Friday to 8am Monday) inventing Skype-friendly freeware, rather than watching telly or playing Dragon Quest.

And let's be glad that they do, because some of these programs could prove very useful. For example the
eBay Bid Advisor alerts an eBay seller when someone's bid on their item, and the Autodialler connects you via SkypeOut to any number you highlight and copy.

Of course, some entries in the gallery are about as useful as a pair of marshmallow wellies, and it's worth remembering that Skype doesn't endorse all this homespun software. Download at your own risk, and all that.

My Skype Extras Gallery wishlist...

1. Skype Fry: automatically feeds my outgoing Skype messages through the brain of Stephen Fry, where they're translated into brilliant witticisms.

2. Skype In Disguise: makes it look like I'm filling in a spreadsheet, when in fact I'm carrying on a Skype instant messaging chat in full view of my boss.

3. Skypesso: delivers a fresh cup of jitter-makingly strong coffee to my desktop in a single click. What more could a desktbound Skype addict need?