I woke up one day (yesterday) and all of a sudden I’m using Skype all the time (including SkypeOut). What changed? First, I’m at my house in Alaska and my habits got shaken up. Second, I installed my Vonage phone so I could have a 303 area code while I’m up here (and just to play around with Vonage) so I decided that while I was at it, I should try Skype as a phone and see how it compared. But – most importantly – the Skype for Outlook plug-in hit beta.
Holy shit – this is cool. It works exactly as you’d want it to. I hate talking on the phone, but it’s a side effect of being a VC. I live in two apps – Outlook (on the left monitor) and Firefox (on the right monitor). Suddenly I’ve got a little magic toolbar that lets me call people via Skype by looking up their info in Outlook. Perfect. And – it works. $12 from Paypal (10 euros) and I’m set with long distance for a long time.
Now – all I need is a headset with a microphone that integrates with my fancy speakers.
That’s cool. Those Thunderbird users can get the Skype plugin here:
Thunderbird Skype Plug-in
Comment by Guy — July 7, 2005 @ 6:58 am
Hey Brad – love your blog – using speakers with Skype sometimes sets up a nasty reverb thing and creates an echo. I’m no expert, but use Skype for conference calls with my coders in Caracas – we have had the best results with everyone using headphones.
Comment by Cleve — July 7, 2005 @ 7:11 am
A headset and microphone is fine – but I find that it becomes a bit messy around the place and there is often a mad scramble as you try to plug it in when someone calls you. I have just bought this phone and it is near perfect. http://www.dualphone.net
Comment by Freddie Daniells — July 7, 2005 @ 1:03 pm
Brad, Skype is awesome, most certainly get a headset or the reverb is horrible. For headphones check out Logitech’s Premium USB Headset 300. These are comfortable, have awesome sound and provide inline volume control. Wait until you try these out. It feels like the person you’re speaking with is in your head. Can be a good or bad thing I guess, depending on who you are talking to.
Comment by James Clark — July 8, 2005 @ 9:07 am
skype is great. check out http://www.internetphonewizard.com, you can use your regular phone for both vonage and skype. i’ve been using it for a couple of months and love it
Comment by arvind — July 8, 2005 @ 3:47 pm
Pick up the Plantronics DSP 500 headset. PLT is the leader by far in headsets in terms of quality, features, etc. – my girlfriend has worked for 7 years, and this is the internal recommendation for skyping/listening to music from the engineers. PLT has a deal with Skype – if you want maybe I can have a freebie sent along if you want to let me know where to send it.
Comment by Edward — July 11, 2005 @ 12:25 pm