We'll be blogging lightly this week. Bill is sick, so is my computer (blue screen after blue screen), Stuart is travelling and Martin's overwhelmed by Baby Geddes. Tips are most welcome.

I have four more passes to O'Reilly's Emerging Telephony Conference to give away. Please leave a comment or Skype me with your contact info and I'll pass them along this week. If you're coming to San Francisco 24-26 January, please let us know; we should have an eBay/Skype dinner. You can still get a 40% discount when you use the code "etel06sms" to register.

Of interest:

• Skype seems to trigger Intel and AMD cpu errors, easily recovered from but preventable if Skype engineers had been using new computers.
  
• Days since Saul promised to call Bill: 28.
  
• Not a Mac guy, I didn't know you can convert skype voicemail messages to mp3s using Audio Hijack Pro. Thanks, Language Lab Unleashed.
  
• SKMAP: Skype status icon on Google Map. Nice mashup. Thanks, Jan.
  
• IM This Page. Nice mockup and explanation on flickr for Skype's browser toolbar wishlist.
  
• How to configure Skype for a portable USB drive. In Japanese with screenshots. Don't miss the extensive thread at PortableApps.com for instructions in English.
  
• Reason of the Day to use Skype video: "I’m looking forward to seeing the 2006 calendar that features Czech politicians’ heads grafted onto famous works of art." by Rabbits, Toyen, and so forth
  

Tag : etel

The Onion's FCC: All Programming To Be Broadcast In ADHDTV By 2007 and Jason Striegel's How I failed the Turing test should make you laugh and think a bit. (btw, ADHD is an American English medical shorthand for Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder. btw is short for By The Way).

localglobe, a blog by Saul Klein, VP Marketing, Skype, London, is sparse but a nice start. Blog on, Saul!

Phones have always been one of the most powerful and natural social networking tools. danah boyd draws a useful distinction between Attention Networks vs. Social Networks when it comes to relationship capital. Right now eBay via Skype holds much data about where and with whom you spend your time. The Attention Trust advocates that you should have control over how that data is used. In some cases you might even be paid if your attention trail helps advertisers find you. Flipped around, your social network may be able to influence your attention. At Microsoft Research, Too Many E-Mails? SNARF Them Up! by Rob Knies describes social sorting for email, defining relevance by social distance. So emails from close friends get more attention than from mutual friends than from strangers. I can see this for reading newsfeeds. Why not SNARF ratings for inbound calls? SNARF sorts of my buddy list?

I have friends who lost their Skype accounts last week, mostly they created the accounts without sharing their email address with Skype or with a none-of-your-business fake email address. Jirong thinks this must make for a More Secure SkypeNet:

Almost all my friends, like me, got a mesage about resetting their Skype password days ago. I am lucky enough to get through the horrible experience. I was trying to make a business SkypeOut when I saw the reset dialogue. Definitely, I hate it! One of my best friend lost his account which has dozens of contact.

When I calmed myself down, I released besides the goodness I have in Skype's letter, maybe I got a more secured and trustful telephony system. Skype is eBay's baby and Versign is eBay's newer buy. There must be some deal under the table. So my bet is SkypeNet is a Versign Trusted Network! Third-party authentication is very important for Skype to enter the business world. Wondering when they are going to publicize this deal.