Skype

My firstborn went to Beijing for a couple of weeks — something was broken and had to be fixed, I guess — and he suggested Skype as an appropriate communications system.  I’ll be writing more about this in the column, but on a preliminary basis, Skype was easy to install and seems to work pretty well.  I had no trouble callng computer to computer, free of charge, and calls to landlines in China, Israel and the US were a couple of pennies a minute after a 4 cent connect charge per call.  There is a $10 minimum deposit, by credit card or paypal, if you want to call out (or wish a fancier receive setup.

I dusted off an old microphone only headset, plugged into the computer line input, and the system worked, playing audio over the computer’s speaker system.  There appeared to be no feedback problems.  Sound quality in was excellent, and I seem to be able to be heard and understood by people I was calling.  More interesting, once Skype Out is active, Firefox seems to show a clickable link every time it displays a phone number.  Just click, and Spyke dials the number for you, and there you are.  THAT is really convenient. Too bad I already get unlimited domestic calling on my ATT landline.