With Skype on your computer (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, or Pocket PC) you can make a voice call to another computer for free, whether it is next door, or on the other side of the world. I have had several Skype calls with Don Greer here in Tulsa, and with a friend of mine in Australia, and you could not tell the difference - both were extremely high quality.

You can also call a telephone number

in most parts of the world, for approximately 2 cents a minute (1.7 Euro Cent). To find out the rate for any particular country, click here.

If you would like to try Skype, download Skype for Windows (2000 or XP), Apple Mac OS X (Mac OS X, Min. 10.3), Linux (See requirements), or Microsoft Pocket PC (2003).

Skype runs in your systray

and when a call comes in it automatically brings up this screen

To answer the call, just click the green telephone handset, and start talking. When you have finished with call, just click the red hanset to hang up.

To call someone right click the green Skype logo in the systray

If the person you want to call has a green oval with a check mark, then that person is online, and you can right click their name, and click Call This Contact

and you will hear a ringing sound, just as they do,

and if they answer the call you can begin talking to them. Sometimes, for people with a broadband connection that is always connected, you may find they have the green oval with the check mark, and yet they may not be near their computer, and therefore they may not answer.

Here is an example where someone tried to call me, and I was not near my computer, but had not changed my status, but I can't just call him back, because none of my contacts is online, so I will send him an instant message.

Ideally if you are going to leave your computer unattended, you should click the green oval in the lower left corner of your Skype screen, and select Away, Not Available, or Do Not Disturb

If the person you want to call is not available you can send them an instant message

You can fill out the message

and it will be sent the next time both of you are online.

You can even carry on a conversation with instant messages

You can even insert "emoticons" in instant messages.

And Skype maintains a history of these instant messages, and you can view it.

For some reason, on my system, the history does not automatically come up. Instead I get this popup:

To get around this problem I created a shortcut to C:\Documents and Settings\Don Singleton\Application Data\Skype\donsingleton\IMHistory in my My Documents folder, and I can go to a browser and do an Open File, browse to the My Documents folder, and select that _IMHistory shortcut

And display the contents of that folder. Skype generates an html file for the different Instant Message Histories you ask to have displayed, and you can pick the appropriate one

and view that history in your browser:

You can also check out your Call List (history) with any person you communicate with using Skype.

You can search for other users

Sometimes you get just a few possibilities

and sometimes you get a lot

however my experience is that the search function is not that reliable. It may only work with people that are online at one time, but even that seems strange, because I have repeated the same search several times, and have gotten different answers each time.

You can create a conference with 4 other people

but I have not done that, so I can't show you an example.

I use Skype with a small microphone and my computer speakers, but if you want to get fancy you can use

Plantronics Headsets Enhance your Skype audio experience with a headset from Plantronics. Choose from a range of PC soundcard or USB models with noise cancelling microphones that deliver the audio quality you need whenever you Skype.

CyberPhone K Plug into your computer’s USB port and use Skype with the CyberPhone K just as you would a normal telephone. Dial SkypeOut numbers from the phone, and assign quick keys to your Skype contacts on Windows. Web Price: $54.99

Olympia Cordless DUALphone Move up to 300 meters away from your PC and make Skype and SkypeOut calls. See who’s online with one push of a button on the handset. It’s a cordless Skype phone and ordinary landline phone in one. Web Price: € 135.00

My Skype contact in Australia just got back home from CES, where he picked up a Skype phone made by PDT (www.pdtuk.com) which has skype-specific buttons to hang up, dial, mute, scroll through the caller list, hook flash etc. Picking up the handsets brings Skype to the top of the screen

Incidentally, if you read my article RSS Feeds in Firefox in last month's I/O Port you might be interested to know that http://groups.blogdigger.com/rss.jsp?id=48&sub=Skype%20Journal is an RSS feed with information about Skype, and http://www.henshall.com/skype/me/ has RSS feeds to bring Blogs and Skypers together so conversations are accelerated. Add their RSS feed and have something to talk about.

For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here