Now you can make a clickable Skype link in Second Life. TDavid of TD Scripts saw my latest Second Life post and whipped up a little service. Form a URL with your Skype name using this format:

http://tduri.com/s-SKYPENAME

That page turns it into a skype:SKYPENAME link that tells your Skype to call that link. Your browser sees a skype:SKYPENAME URL.

So, for me, that's

http://tduri.com/s-evanwolf

You can now create a Skype Me link if you're in Second Life or anywhere else that doesn't know Skype tags from shinola.

Variations:

• sa- add
• st- text
• su- user info

Bonus #1: Promoting a Skype 3.0 public chat? Give an invitation in Second Life by using the "Promote Your Public Chat" link with TDavid's script. Just copy from the promotional link everything after the skype: and paste it in TDavid's script where you'd put your Skype name. I did that to create the url in this link: The Skype 3.0 discussion.

Technology and Products

1. MobiGater GSM-to-Skype gateway, plugs into your PC, passes Skype calls to your mobile phone. Also lets you speed dial your Skype buddies from your mobile, ringing them on Skype. From Bulgaria to 20 countries

2. Accessing Skype APIs with Ruby. Pretty easy, if you know the Ruby programming language.

3. Moodgeist pinger for Linux. The better to let the universe know how you're feeling. Even if you're using Linux.

4. 10 Things to Know About Skype Ap2Ap Programming. Read this before you code. Adrian Cockroft.

5. Skype on Solaris. More Sun bloggers spread the word.

6. US Robotics' webcam. Is the 9640 cheaper (at $40) and smaller than the Logitech Fusion?

Advanced topics

1. Project San Dimas, an experimental eBay desktop, built on the Adobe Apollo platform using web services. Congrats to eBay's Alan Lewis.

2. Nokia: Hyperlinking Reality via Phones. "Nokia researchers are working on a system that allows physical objects to be identified and connected to the Internet through mobile-phone screens."

3. MashupU. Anyone from the Skype developer community available to teach at MIT, 15-16 January 2007?

4. Everything is Miscellaneous lecture. David Weinberger's speech mp3 (46:53, 22.5 MB) at the Scottish Learning Festival.

5. Cooperation Commons. Research project by the Institute for the Future and Howard Rheingold to study cooperation and collective action.

6. A Voluntarily Loosely Organized Organization. How does Skype support emergent management practices?

Business

1. Boom when UAE's Etisalat opens up to Skype? Skype Wi-Fi phone vendor Belkin is hoping UAE lifts Skype ban sooner than later.

2. Death of the phone company: "There will be a custom communications experience generated dynamically for every context, and it may be personalised for the individual communicators."

3. Death of Skype: Australian ISP: "Skype packets, in the world that we are heading to, will be able to be seen by all telcos and all telcos will have the capacity to prioritise or de-prioritise those packets."

4. ISP Xtra: No Skype shaping. Computerworld: Despite terms of service which allow it,

   Telecom's retail ISP Xtra says there is no rate-limiting for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications, contrary to reports in the media and complaints in web and Usenet forums. "Applications such as Skype can be used," Xtra spokeswoman Lenska Papich says. No traffic management is applied to Skype, she adds.

5. The future is bright .. The future is 3 .. How 3's switch to flat rates for mobile data unleashes explosive growth. Great essay, by Ajit Jaokar, about taking down the "walled garden" (controlling everything in the ecosystem) in favor of an Open Garden. via John Furrier.

6. WordPress follows SixApart and SocialText into Corporate IT. SixApart needs this: one enterprise vendor is a novelty, four is a market. See also Traction and Blogtronix. Skype may benefit from enterprise adoption of other social media like blogs and wikis if they jump on the knowledge management and collaboration memes, and further integrate Skype into blogs.

7. Ten Worst Internet Acquisitions Ever. Skype is number 9. Others: Hotmail, MySimon, BlueMountain, Lycos, Netscape, GeoCities, Excite, AOL, and Broadcast.com. A hard meme to kill.

8. The Peanut Butter Manifesto. Yahoo!'s Brad Garlinghouse rocks. Messenger's executive sponsor bets his career on focusing Yahoo!

... in a game where, as in golf, the lowest number of strokes wins! Google announced a Click-to-Call feature for Google Maps yesterday. So I go to Google Maps, select Businesses, enter "restaurants" into the Type of Business box and "Mississauga {Home Postal Code}" into the "Where" box. And I get:

Click on B for Golden View Restaurants (where we obtain our annual New Year's Eve party food) and I get the pop-up below on the left. Click on Send to Phone and I get the pop-up asking for my phone number and my carrier -- except there are only U.S. carriers listed (and all Telco 1.0)! 3 clicks plus 10 characters (to enter your phone number). Except I live in Canada ....hmmm ....

Or, since I have installed the Skype 3.0 Beta with its Click-to-Call feature, I can simply pick up my UConnect-enabled Nortel phone, dial **, (or pick up a USB-connected VoIPvoice Cyberphone) and click on the Skypified link under the restaurant's listing on the left:. I then click OK on the "Start SkypeOut" confirmation window. Call initiated; no Telco 1.0 carrier designation required! (And note that Skype 3.0's Click-to-Call recognizes that it is a Canadian phone number.) One click to place the call; one to acknowledge that there could be a charge involved.

A simple example of what Martin is talking about in his Telco 2.0 "Death of the Phone Company" post.

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I shot this demonstration on Halloween, 31 October 2006, in the offices of TalkPlus in San Mateo, California. The video is uncut, no editing at all, including about five seconds in the beginning of Jeff Black, TalkPlus CEO and founder, warming up. The call is from an unaltered mobile phone. You will see the Jeff send a text message and automatically download a Java program. That app shows his Skype address book, and he clicks on Skype's echo123 acount. For those who don't know it, echo123 is one of Skype's first test accounts. It doesn't have a SkypeIn number, so you couldn't fake access by dialing a PSTN number that forwards to echo123. TalkPlus doesn't have any access to Skype's private SIP gateways. So this demo shows that TalkPlus customers can dial any Skype user by their Skype name.

It also shows that TalkPlus has engineered a server without Skype components that talks to the Skype network as if it were a Skype client using Skype's own language. It will scale to thousands of simultaneous sessions. TalkPlus has no plans to license this technology or turn it into a product. They built it to solve their customers' need to talk with millions of Skype users.

Jeff demonstrates that Skype's protocols have been reverse engineered, and shows unmet demand for a high performance, highly scalable, "headless" or "naked" Skype server.

As mentioned elsewhere I have had significant exposure to a variety of phones that have been designed to work with Skype, either as the primary purpose of the device (Skype WiFi phones, Skype Cordless phones) or as an application within a more versatile mobile "personal assistant" platform (Windows Mobile platforms and, by year end, Symbian platforms such as the Nokia N-series). In addition I have now had the opportunity to work with a few wireless phones made by Nokia and Research in Motion (Blackberry). A few comments that could help Skype ecosystem product managers going forward:

Battery life: many of these phones have a battery life of four to six hours idle time. Probably best to license RIM's Blackberry power management -- I can get four to five days of idle time on my 8700. Any device that will have a hope of broad market acceptance should have at least two days idle time.

DTMF tones: This is a fairly basic and widely deployed feature of the Voice 1.0 phone infrastructure; yet I am constantly amazed at the cavalier approach taken to making sure "TouchTones" work with any Skype client, whether a softphone or a hardware device. Here are some of my experiences:

• Skype itself would not work reliably with DTMF tones prior to version 2.0; that issue has been resolved at this point (within the Skype client's "Dial" tab).
• The Skype WiFi phones do not support DTMF; therefore they limit the usefulness of SkypeOut when calling businesses that use IVR systems or other services, such as voice mail systems, that require a DTMF response. I have also experienced USB phones with the same issue.
• At the other extreme the RTX Dualphone and VoIPvoice Cyberphones do provide the appropriate support; the Sony Mylo aslo supports DTMF but you have to remember to put their unique keyboard in NUM mode to enter the tones.

Chat: I view Skype as having two primary features: Instant Messaging (presence and chat) and Voice. For USB phones, the IM activity remains on the host PC; however, for PC-independent devices there are issues:

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Today Skype released Skype for Pocket PC 2.1, a release whose accompanying documentation reflects the reality of the limited resources of handheld mobile devices. A full list of new features is available here; however, key items include:

• A new multi-chat interface which supports chats with several participants.
• Skype Launcher, a small 'launcher" application that checks available memory and verifies that Skype is installed correctly. (Hopefully this will avoid the situation I previously encountered where sometimes I had to reboot a Windows Mobile device before Skype for Pocket PC would start if other programs, such as SliingBox Mobile, were running.)
• Built-in call management that detects incoming mobile calls (via your normal mobile service) during a Skype call and offers the user the choice to hang up or ignore the call. You can switch to Skype calls when in a mobile call.
• Detailed contact search including specification of country, city and language as options.

However, buried in the details are the following that reflect a more realistic approach to Mobile Skype:

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Last week my Windows configuration finally collapsed under the weight of too many installs/uninstalls. When four different program upgrades won't install properly (including the new Skype 2.6 beta) and come up during the installation attempts with dialogue boxes that only the most dedicated and focused developer would understand, it's time to re-install Windows XP from a fresh start.

How did I know my configuration (and/or Windows Installer) was corrupt? When I went to reinstall the previous version of Skype (2.5) I got the same error dialogue box and there was not a trace of Skype left in Add/Remove Programs. And I had recently experienced two other programs that balked at upgrade attempts.

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• Hostel stay comes with Skype.
• Free Comverse Klonie avatars for Skype. One more erased barrier to adoption. It's good that Skype continues to experiment with offers and prices in eCommerce.
• McAfee security products get Skype Certified. Co-marketing, revenue sharing, hoping McAfee's saftey brand notes wash off Skype's piracy brand notes.
• Live video special effects. ManyCam works with Skype, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo!
• Bob Crabtree reviews the D-Link Skype USB Phone Adapter DPH-50U. "Judging by our experiences, a more honest strategy for D-Link would be to pull the product completely off the UK market until it is able to introduce a version that works with modern DECT phones in something approaching a reliable fashion." Ouch.
• Windows Live Spaces launches with gadgets and social networking. Microsoft's blending of their blog and voice social spaces brings their slow and fast worlds closer together. Personal digital identity is the common thread, something shared by eBay/Skype, Yahoo!, Google, and AOL. They build strength by (a) having more places to use your own ID, (b) the convenience of managing contacts in one place, and (c) the large directories that improve your chances of finding someone the first time you look. Stand-alone VoIP networks are at a disadvantage, so I expect lots of M&A activity by this time next year.

Many of graphics and images that you see in Skype Journal  (including the ones in this post) have been captured using TechSmith's Snag-It. Snag-It has been a core utility for my Windows computing over the past five or six years.  Need to capture an object on your Windows desktop (or your entire desktop)? Snag-It does it and allows you to output it in many ways, including several graphics formats such as jpg, gif and png.

Today I received their monthly newsletter announcing the availability of three Skype profiles:

If you share images during Skype conversations, you know the process involves taking and saving the screen capture, then browsing for, opening, attaching and sending the image file over Skype.

Now, SnagIt has a set of profiles for Skype that allow you to take screen captures and send them immediately to the person you're talking to over Skype - or to any of your other Skype contacts.

More information and the free Skype Profiles download; there is also a video demonstration showing the entire process, including the ability to edit the captured image prior to sending it via Skype's File Transfer.

One more partner in the Skype ecosystem...

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Yesterday Phil referenced the Skype/SanDisk press release announcing that Skype 2.0, featuring Internet video calling, would be preloaded on all SanDisk U3-enabled Smart Drives such that a user could access and use Skype from any Windows computer, such as at an Internet café.  But there is a caveat; from the Help for U3:

A U3 program is a special version of an application that has been created to run from flash drives. Once you install a U3 program on your device, you can run it from any Windows computer. The U3 environment ensures that the application data and settings are stored on the device. The environment also caters for multiple applications running simultaneously from the device and for the possible situation in which the device is ejected or removed from the computer while applications are still running.

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Over the years your Skype contacts list will grow and grow. Mine is over 500 now. And that's after constant pruning. A long list of contacts makes it difficult and frustrating to scroll to find a contact. Even if you use Grouping (I gave up on Grouping Contacts).

If you happen to be one of the ten million Skype Users who are red-green colour-blind (like I am) you will find this function absolutely invaluable.

Now I just use the Search function. Works like this--

I need to find Sharon's SkypeOut number.

In the "Flag Field" at the bottom of the Skype Client I start typing in, "Shar... " a "Looking for... Shar" tab opens up (see the top arrow in the screen shot) It lists all contacts with the contiguous letters "shar". I double click the entry I want and Sharon's landline rings.

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Recently Alec Saunders wrote a post that caused me to attempt to send him an SMS message; however, when I right clicked on his name, the "Send SMS Message" line was grayed/greyed out. (This is a bilingual post; being a Canadian we try to satisfy all audiences).

During my interview this morning with Peter Kalmström, a Skype Developer Program Manager, I pointed this out.  I knew that Alec had entered his mobile phone number and, after checking with him, that he had activated SMS messaging in his User Profile. Upon further investigation Peter identified that the problem was due to the failure to enter a country code ("+1") in the Mobile Phone entry in the User Profile (File | My Profile). Seems that, when making a user's native country code more transparent in Skype 2.5 beta, this is one item that was overlooked.

While it sounds trivial, the ability to make phone calls within North America without using a country code is very important to Skype adoption in North America. Most North Americans do not realize they live in the "+1" country code and do not realize that the international standard is to add a "+" prior to the country code to initiate a call. The "1" dialed to identify a long distance call within North America has always been associated with identifying that a long distance toll will apply to the call, not a country code. (I have to admit that when I first went to a European country with my GSM phone a couple of years ago, I kept wondering why 011-46-xxxxxx would not work at my destination airport in Sweden; finally someone pointed out the "+46" protocol.)

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A letter from a concerned reader:

Hi. My company has blocked the use of Skype on our company computer network (becuase of pressure from the national phone company here). When I try to launch Skype, a message pop-us saying "This application has been blocked!" Is it possible to avoid this block? Can Skype be used through a website or does the application actually need to be launched? Are there other VOIP or telephony programs which work from websites or otherwise don't need a separate application to be launched on the PC?

One at a time:

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by Stephen Klosky, Director, Federal Systems Engineering, Dataline, Inc.

I often demonstrate Skype and its capabilities to business associates. Crowding around a monitor is sometimes awkward. At my desk, I have a laptop, a docking station, and a second monitor which works well for me and one or two guests. For larger groups, I needed a better setup, so I decided to "Skypify" the nearby conference room.

Before

The typical setup in conference room before the upgrade was to take a portable LCD projector and connect it to any of the laptops in the office. The projector pointed at a whiteboard or a blank wall. This setup was functional, but had some drawbacks. Cords ran across walkways, image quality took some time to tune and setup correctly, there was no audio support, and there was no pc based VTC support.

I did have some gear available for the project. The IT department had purchased a Polycom ViewStation H.323 station with a TV for a monitor. This setup was on an A/V cart. This was attractive because the remote controllable camera could be used for the video part of Skype. Also, the mic pod could be used for the Skype microphone.

View Stephen's complete photo set on flickr as a slide show.

Shopping on a $510 budget

So, there were definitely some areas for improvement. My plan was to add a stereo for sound reinforcement, a USB video capture device for the video support, a ceiling mount kit for the projector, a wireless keyboard and mouse setup, a ceiling mount kit for the stereo speakers, a manual pull down screen for the projector, cables, mounting hardware and power strips.

I was on a non-existent / small budget, so, after a brief eBay session, I found the items I needed. Fortunately for me, I work for an office with quick approval processing and was able to get the upgrade approved in about an hour or so. After getting the approval, I went back to eBay and ordered up the gear. Here is a spreadsheet I used to track the gear.

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Skype calls are not perfect quality. No surprise. What can you do when you have a poor connection. Hang-up and call again. Yes, but with a twist.

Here is what my Skype buddy Neil Lindsey in Vancouver discovered. Hang-up, but before you call again set your Skype status to offline for 15 seconds. This apparently forces a new Supernode to be selected for call setup and improves the likelihood for a better connection to be established.

Here is to clearer connections...

I have a great new add-in for weekend Skype experimenters. It will create a multiparty conference call with webcam images. Plus you can take it further and animate your Skype avatar for all your buddies with what ever video content you choose - live or prerecorded. I'm now waiting to be part of the first animated avatars multichat with 50 people. I'm also waiting to see it used for advertising videos and self promotion!. Lester similarly highlights it on his developers blog.

Time to play.

The first add-in you wil need to download is AVACON described here with video shots below. The second is SplitCam which will enable you to put whatever video content you want through the AVACON system. Here is the illustration of my Skype avatar live with a short video shot while walking with a Nokia N90. It's a boring video and changes every two seconds approx.

It works by changing the Skype™ AVATAR with captured video images of you. It is that simple. AVACON™ allows you to broadcast your captured video all the time, or use the privacy features that allows you to limit broadcasting to active calls only or you can just disable broadcasting totally. AVACON™ also come with a resizable Preview Window that allows you to view yourself during your setup. So Download the FREE Trial Version and have fun. Avacon

So how well does it work.
It does what I've suggested many times in the past. It utilizes the Skype profile picture to pass content to either buddies on your list or active callers only. Frankly it's pretty cool.

Immediate feedback on the product.

I had a question today. It seems simple enough. "Can you help me? I want to delete my first username because I have now a new one.I dont want two usernames" . So I bashed out the two minute reply. Here it is...

Hi,

Skype doesn't enable you to delete a name or account. Once created it is there forever; as far as I know. Still you don't need to worry about it. Just use the name you have now chosen and add your buddies to it and never log in again to the old one. The other one will be effectively forgotten. You could take some additional actions to "LOSE IT" so to speak.

If you have...
- buddies on it you could delete them.
- skypeout minutes on it you probably want to use them up as you can't transfer them from one buddy to another.
- if the profile is filled in you may want to delete all info..
- And if you are really wanting to try and lose it then change the email address on it to something that no one would ever find searching for you... unknown@hotmail.com probably works.
- then change your password to something completely random forget it and you will never be able to access any of it again.

That should do it.
..........................

Now the problem is many more people have created accounts and names on many of these systems that they would like back. However they created the name without a valid email account and forgot the password. Unfortunately they then tend to be gone forever.

In the choosing your "name" I'm a fan of real names. It may be hard if you are John Smith, still presenting your "real name" in the Full Name field in Skype just seems polite to me. Just remember that add