Skype, hype or the real deal?
I just arrived in Taiwan. The local time was around 5:10 a.m. and so I took a taxi to my hotel in Hsinchu and proceeded to get unpacked and adjust my body clock to Taipei time. Yesterday (or 2 days ago depending on your point of view) just before I left, I installed Skype on Terri's laptop as well as on mine. Skype is a free voice-over-IP phone service and I've been hearing so much about it that I thought I should give it a try. I wasn't expecting too much since it's free and free services aren't always guaranteed to work but I must say that based on this initial test, it worked great! I gave Terri a call and the sound quality was excellent, there were no discernable dropouts, and it appears to even work across my employer's industrial strength firewall. Adam Curry is always talking up Skype and now after trying it, I can certainly see why. Calling back to the U.S. over traditional phone systems is always a bit of a headache with having to first find the number for the AT&T operator, then entering the number I'm calling, and then the calling card number. With Skype, you just doubleclick on the person you want to talk with and in a few seconds, you've got a connection.
If you've been curious about Skype and want to check it out, go ahead and give it a try. It's easy to install and easy to use and appears, at least from this hotel, to work as well from 10,000 miles away as it did from our initial testing in the same house. Link
If you've been curious about Skype and want to check it out, go ahead and give it a try. It's easy to install and easy to use and appears, at least from this hotel, to work as well from 10,000 miles away as it did from our initial testing in the same house. Link
