Around Skype's website

If you want to get involved with the latest developments and experiments behinds the scenes at Skype Towers, pay a visit to Skype Garage, a wiki section of the site where new Skype bits and bobs get their first airing.

The Garage is a little bit like Google Labs, only more inclusive – and, as Skypemeister Jaanus explains, “Labs makes it sound like you have to be a rocket scientist and wear a white coat and do experiments on mice.”

Any Skyper can visit the Garage and get their hands dirty, or just keep an eye on things like early betas, previews or pre-release versions of Skype products on current or new platforms, and improvements to existing tools.

If you have any comments or suggestions, nip over to the Garage forum, where recent discussions range from wondering when Skype will be available for the Nokia N800 to the latest word on high-res video calls.

Gorgeous shiny new homepage at Skype.com today, complete with button for downloading the new version 3.0 for Windows.

Hey! That’s me! Nip over to Skype’s homepage today and you’ll see a shiny new link straight to this blog.

What’s that…? You followed that very link to get here? Well, I’d better stop babbling and let you carry on reading, hadn’t I? Have fun, my new friend…

You know how it is: you’re shuffling home at 2am after another ill-advised festive shindig, and you need to pick up some milk and onions and stuff. But they won’t take your Switch card. Or Maestro, or whatever it’s called now. Cash only, and there’s no cashpoint for miles. So you head home, onionless.

Life would be so much easier if everyone in the world took Paypal. A big yellow ‘Pay Now’ button on every shop till, like in your eBay emails. This would be especially great in January and February, when your Paypal balance is riding high after you’ve eBayed off all your unwanted pressies. Hey, it’s just common-sense recycling.

Skype, of course, does accept Paypal – and many more payment methods besides, including lesser-spotted forms of plastic (Diners, Solo), Ukash and Moneybookers. No idea what Ukash and Moneybookers are? Then head for the all-new Ways to pay page, where you can find out about the oodles of different ways to pay for Skype credit, Skype vouchers and other Skype stuff.

My visit to the developer zone yesterday turned into something of a magical mystery tour of brilliant new Skypetastic apps. Click any link and you find yourself wowing over ideas dreamt up and created by big-brained Skypers while they could be down the pub or lying in front of Strictly Come Dancing.

One of my favourite sections is Community Projects, where you get to road-test all the fabulous and curious apps that might one day take their place in the official Skype app family.

Continue reading "Nosing around the Community Projects" »