Skype meeting tips

As more and more of my business calls are international, I’ve found Skype an invaluable tool for keeping the phone bills reasonable and being able to see eye-to-eye with the person at the other end of the phone line.

So I appreciated Chris Garrett’s Tips for Better Skype Meetings. For example, Chris suggests, [Read more]

Skype Update: Free Calls to Landline Phones within US and Canada

Earlier today I wrote about Skype. Here’s a hot-off-the cyber-presses Skype announcement made today:

If you’re in the US or Canada, you can use SkypeOut to call any landline or mobile number in both the USA and Canada for free.

Is it really free? What are the strings attached? Yes. It is really very, very free. There’s no prepayment, no minimum use, no subscription, no monthly fee, no nothing. You just download and install Skype and then you start calling. Both the caller and the number called must be in either the US or Canada. There are no strings attached.

The only condition is that we have said free SkypeOut within the US and Canada is guaranteed to last until the end of this year — that is, until December 31, 2006. We’re not quite sure yet what we will do after that. Maybe we extend the free period, maybe not. You’ll hear more about this towards the end of the year.

Until then, happy calling.

Happy calling indeed! This may be just the thing to encourage you to try Skype if you haven’t already. (And no, I don’t get anything from Skype for recommending their service.)

Skype: Make Free Calls from Your Computer

I’ve been experimenting with Skype for about a month and thought I’d let you know about my experience so far.

Skype is “a little program for making free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It’s free and easy to download and use, and works with most computers.” That pretty much sums it up. It downloaded and installed with ease, and I made my first call about 15 minutes after getting started. All I needed was my USB headset (you can buy them at RadioShack or find links from the Skype website).

Calls from one computer to another are free, from anywhere to anywhere in the world, and they take place via Internet connection. [Read more]