Skype tips and tricks

Following the resounding thumbs-up we got from the guys at the Conversation Network about using Skype for interviews, I thought I'd share this little nugget from the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum Blog (via the Melcrum Blog) about using Skype to bring speakers in to conferences:

Euan Semple dialled into the conference over Skype and I have to say that the connection robustness was impressive. There was me thinking it was going to be something much more complex, but it wasn’t needed. Very tempted to suggest it as an option for a conference we’re holding in May.

At last July’s media and blogger event in Tallinn, we used Skype to allow people who’d suffered from the same cancelled flight as me to go ahead and give their presentations from London. I’d agree with Alex Manchester at the Melcrum Blog — using Skype like this certainly isn’t complex — but here are three tips to make sure that your Skype conference speaker experiences go smoothly:

• Turn off screensavers, popup alerts and anything else which might obstruct the video in full screen mode — there’s nothing worse than having your speaker’s face obscured by an email or Twitter notification halfway through his or her presentation.

• Make sure the internet connection speed is reasonably high, and avoid using any other high-bandwidth apps at the same time — at July’s media event, we asked attendees to stop running Skype on their laptops while the speakers were presenting in order to make sure the video quality was outstanding.

• Set up a webcam on the computer which you’re running Skype on in the conference room, so that the speaker can see the audience while they’re speaking — this is incredibly helpful for the speaker, as it allows them to gauge the audience’s reaction to what they’re saying.

Martin Varsavsky from FON talks about the expansion of their network of FON hotspots by 3 million in one fell swoop, thanks to a hookup with BT. Quite what he’s doing wandering round the Tate Modern I’m not sure, though perhaps it’s to do with BT’s sponsorship deal there.

As the FON blog says, BT Broadband users can now opt in to make their broadband wireless hub a FON hotspot and get free Wi-fi at other FON hotspots in return:

Every person in the UK who agrees to share a small portion of their home broadband connection will be able to share the connection of any other member. Anyone joining in will be able to use those FON hotspots across the world and all the new BT FON hotspots free of charge.

It's been interesting to see how the blogosphere has reacted to the announcement. Connected Internet raises questions about bandwidth allocation:

[BT] didn’t give any details of how much bandwidth each BT Fon customer will be asked to share. It will probably be enough for BT Fon users to be able to surf the net, read emails, watch YouTube videos etc but not enough for anyone who wants to sit outside their neighbours house and download a torrent.

and Martyn Davis at Blognation UK talks about the future:

On a broader canvas, this is an interesting experiment in picocell technology. As wireless Internet speeds get faster in the future, your proximity to the base station will define what performance you get to the Internet. This means that high speed wireless technologies like WiMax and 3G HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) will not give good coverage if service providers just build a handful of giant towers; it will be rather important to have picocells, or small capacity base stations that are available in large numbers. Actually, what could be a better approach then turning WiFi-equipped homes and businesses into a picocell network?

Of course, more Wi-fi can only be good news for Skype users. In fact, the SMC wifi phone will connect straight in to a FON hotspot, so perhaps it won’t be long before you can avoid carrying a laptop altogether.

Over the last week or so I’ve had quite a few people contact me asking about SkypeIn area codes — it seems that more and more people are looking for area codes for places which aren’t big cities.

In the UK, SkypeIn numbers are available with the following area codes:

• 020 — London
• 0121 — Birmingham
• 0131 — Edinburgh
• 0141 — Glasgow
• 0151 — Liverpool
• 0161 — Manchester
• 0191 — Newcastle/Gateshead/Durham
• 0113 — Leeds
• 01237 — Brighton and Hove
• 028 — Northern Ireland (numbers available are in the Belfast range 028 95XX XXXX)
• 029 — Cardiff (numbers in the range 029 21XX XXXX)

These cover a reasonable selection of the bigger towns and cities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but there are certainly a few gaps. Which places would you like to see added to this list?

Just in case you’re not aware, you can buy a SkypeIn number for wherever you like in the UK — different rules may apply to overseas numbers, and I know that France in particular requires you to be a French resident before you can have a French phone number.

Within Britain, though, you’re free to choose any number. If you’re at university in Birmingham, but have friends in Manchester, for example, you could grab a Manchester SkypeIn number so that they can call you at local rates. If you work between Glasgow and Edinburgh, and it’s important to your clients that they don’t think you’re favouring one city over the other, then just pick one of each; you can have up to 10 SkypeIn numbers attached to each Skype name.

It’s easy to record Skype calls with the help of utilities such as Pamela and Ecamm’s Call Recorder for Mac, but before you get carried away, it’s worth being aware of the legal implications of recording conversations.

In the UK, phone call recording is covered by a patchwork of different legislation, and while trying to read through all of it is a task you’ll probably want to leave to a solicitor, here are a few basics:

Please not that this doesn’t constitute legal advice, so get in touch with a solicitor if you need to make decisions based on this information.

Can I record Skype conversations?

Yes. You’re allowed to record calls so long as the recording is for your own use. If you plan to give the recording to a third party — someone who wasn’t on the call — then you need to take a look at the next question.

Do I have to let people know that I’m recording a Skype call?

No, so long as you’re not going to make the recording available to a third party. If you are going to make the recording available to others, you’ll need the consent of the people on the call.

What happens if I unlawfully record a call?

It’s a civil offence, which means that the people you’ve recorded have the right to take action against you in court.

Where can I find out more?

Ofcom have some answers to common questions on their website, but if you want the full details, you’ll need to dive in to the various bits and pieces of legislation:

• Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000
• Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000
• Data Protection Act 1998
• Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999
• Human Rights Act 1998

Consumer mag Web User has published a round-up of tips to get the best out of Skype, which it reckons to be “the world’s number one internet calling service”. And who are we to argue? Here’s a quick pick of the tips:

Call forwarding Have any incoming calls transferred to a phone of your choice; your caller will be charged at the standard SkypeOut rate. To set it up, open Skype and click on Tools, then Call Forwarding.

Video calling Kit yourself out with a webcam, then open Skype and go to Tools, Options, Video (beta). You can choose who to receive video from and even decide whether your video output should begin automatically whenever you start a call.

Create call-specific ringtones The free Ringjacker add-on for Skype 3.0 allows you to set a ringtone that your friends will hear when you call them – but they’ll need to have the plug-in installed as well.

Check out the Web User website for more tips.

While we’re on the subject, I’ve also spotted a list of 25 Skype-hacks on the Voip News website. Ingenious tips include using Skype as a home-monitoring system and even setting a wake-up call.

The other day I mentioned Skype Garage, where you can find out about new Skype developments and get involved with the process. If you’re handy enough with code to cook up your own Skype add-ons, check out Skype Developer Support. Skype’s community support staff can offer tips on making your programs work with Skype APIs or services, free of charge.

Today, Skype Garage – tomorrow, Skype Certification? If your program or product is Skype Certified, its quality and Skype-compatibility are assured, and that can only be good news for its popularity – especially if it is listed as a Premium or Featured placement on the Skype Extras Gallery.

To get your product Skype Certified, you need to submit a software certification request and pay a testing fee. If it passes Skype’s stringent tests, it wins certification for one year. Since the beginning of this month, any hardware product that uses the Skype API must be submitted for testing.

It’s the middle of January. Christmas is long gone, the sales are over, you’ve got no money. You’ve broken your resolutions, your bottom has gone from peachy to porky. It’s cold and dark when you get up in the morning, and it’s cold and dark when you get home from work. The middle of January sucks.

But Skype’s website offers plenty of ways to cheer yourself up, and I suggest that you start playing around with them right now rather than attempt to travel home from work in today’s ridiculous weather.

Happiness helper #3: Pretty up your profile
To put a new face to your name, click the Change button next to the picture that’s already there and My Pictures will open with a selection of images. Select the one you want – or click Browse and choose a picture from your computer’s hard drive.

Happiness helper #2: Spread the word about your birthday
Add your date of birth to your profile, and all your Skype friends will receive reminders about your birthday. Hurrah! All you need to do is open Skype, go to File on the menu, select ‘Edit my profile’, enter your date of birth in the box and click Update.

Happiness helper #3: Buy a pal a Gift Certificate
Best way to earn happiness is to spread a little bit of it. Log on to My Account at the Skype Store, scroll down and select ‘Purchase Gift Certificates’, select the type and amount you want, and pay using the on-screen instructions. Hopefully your recipient will be so grateful they’ll return the favour one day.

Wiped out the kitty over Christmas? Here’s an easy way to top up your Skype credit without handing over any cash: add a Skype banner to your website, and collect credit every time someone clicks the banner.

This Skype affiliate scheme is outlined in full here, but it’s pretty simple. Skype hosts the banners and pays for the bandwith; all you do is choose your favourite banner from the range of Flash and Gif banners available (there’s even a simple text link if you prefer the lo-fi approach), copy/paste the code into your site’s own HTML and wait for the clicks to come in. Every time someone clicks your banner, Skype’s site opens in a new window.

Skype will regularly add new deisgns to the banners page, so it’s worth checking back now and then to see if a new one takes your fancy.

The Skype Stories forum contains some real gems of Skype-based creativity, and it’s well worth a look when you’re after innovative ways to stay in touch with loved ones… or loved football teams.

A Californian forumite named ‘NDgamefan’ shares his smart tip for catching the latest American Football games while you’re 7,000 miles away in Paris. Forget pay-per-view web TV, forget shiny new internet broadcasting portals with “Venice” in their names – all NDgamefan did was get his folks to stick a webcam in front of the telly at home in LA.

Thanks to the magic of Skype Video, NDgamefan caught the last 10 minutes of this week’s Notre Dame-USC game in LA without paying a penny. He was thoroughly impressed by the experience. “The video quality was actually decent,” he says. “It was great to also hear my family’s reactions, as if I was right there with them on the sofa watching the game.”

Here begins my week of living dangerously in an East London internet cafe. Imagine the net cafe in the picture, crossed with the black hole of Calcutta and smelling of stale sweat and KFC.

One of the few advantages of living in the white-van gulag of Walthamstow is that every third shop is a net cafe, so, when your home connection goes up the swanny, you can just nip down the road and log on for 70p an hour.

That said, I’ve not yet found a local net cafe that’s easy to work in. All the computers in this one look like they survived an IT course on the Titanic, and I’m not allowed to download Skype on any of them. But, according to a discussion on Skype’s online forum, I can still use it.

Apparently if I save the latest version of the Skype.exe file on a USB memory stick and plug the stick into the cafe computer, I can run the software from the stick. It sounds a little fiddly, but it’s got to be worth a try as a short-term headache cure. Worth remembering next time you’re off to travel the world.

Skype Video is a multi-talented beast. Not only will it let you chat face-to-face with friends on the other side of the world, but it’ll also keep an eye on your home when you’re away. Which certainly beats giving a spare key to your weird next-door neighbour so he can come round and watch all your Patrick Swayze DVDs.

For guidance on using Skype Video as a home monitor, check out this discussion on the Skype forum. Crucially, you can start the video stream remotely over the net, without anyone needing to be in your house to accept the call.

For its next trick, Skype will figure out a way to check that you didn’t leave the iron on this morning.

Another day, and another bunch of big companies discover the joy of text. Today, HSBC and First Direct have announced a plan to offer banking via text message, and Boots says it plans to text health test results to customers.

So it seems a good day to flag up Skype’s SMS service. You can use Skype to text any of your Skype or SkypeOut contacts if they’ve added their mobile number in their profile. The rates are Skype-tastically cheap (6.4p per text to phones in the UK), and the money is simply deducted from your Skype Credit.

Butterfingered types among us are particularly grateful for the chance to compose texts using our computers rather than phone keypads, which are now getting so small that dextrous ants would find them fiddly.

Find out more in Skype’s guide to sending SMS.

I have Skype button envy. I keep getting emails from people with one of these smart little clickable bubbles in their signatures, and I want one.

Happily, I find that it’s very easy to do. Click here to pick a basic Skype button and grab the code for your website, blog or email sig. If someone wants to Skype you, they just click the button.

(Memo to JJ Abrams: flashing green cursors are so 1985. For season 3 of Lost, stick them in a new bunker and make them Skype each other every half hour. Come on, I can see you’re running out of ideas.)

Continue reading "Get a Skype button" »

If you don’t much like handing out credit card numbers and fat fistfuls of cash willy-nilly, or if you just get bored typing in your card number every time you buy something online, here’s good news: Skype takes PayPal.

Of course, Skype calls and Skype chats don’t need any kind of payment at all – much my favourite kind of transaction. But when you want to buy stuff from the Skype Shop or call landlines or mobiles, you’ll have to cough up some pennies.

PayPal, as eBay addicts know, is basically a secure online wallet. Open a PayPal account, and you can buy and sell using that account – so you never have to send a cheque or hand over your money details to a fellow eBayer. You can either dip into your secure balance, or ask PayPal to deduct money securely from your plastic or bank account.

Some Skype transactions, including Skype Credit, SkypeIn and Voicemail, accept an even simpler version of PayPal: PayPal Pre-approved. This means you don’t have to sign into PayPal and authenticate each purchase individually; instead it’s all done in a couple of clicks. Beats queing in Asda after a long day at work, doesn’t it?

Behold, the most useful flick I’ve seen on YouTube today. (The most useful, but not the best. That’ll be the kung fu baby.)

Link: More Skyping on YouTube

Back in the olden days of the early 90s, as a cabal of geeks laboured at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, little could anyone have imagined what extraordinary feats their fledgling “internet” might one day achieve.

Feats like, say, a little man showing his bum-cheeks to your mate in Sydney. In real time!

The bum-cheeks are just one (well, two) of the secret emoticons known to many a Skype Chat veteran, but still a mystery to most newbies who are still getting their heads around the whole free phone calls thing. (Yes, Mum. You can close your mouth now.)

You can find out what other Skypers are saying about these Easter Eggs on the Skype forum, where the bare bum and the one-fingered salute appear to be the most popular hidden gems.

So, how do you slip one of these babies into a Skype chat? In most cases, just type the appropriate word, contained within brackets. So, just as when you type ‘:)’ you see a yellow smiley face in your Skype window, you’ll see the mooning man if you type ‘(mooning)’.

Mess around with other Easter Egg prompts, from ‘(finger)’ and ‘(ninja)’ to ‘(headbang)’ and ‘(toivo)’ (that’s the butch bloke and his dog), and you’ll create seven shades of confusion among your Skype pal as he or she tries to figure out exactly what it is you’re trying to imply.