Skype "The Whole World Can Talk For Free"...

I hardly use Skype at all, it's not that I don't like it as I've never really used it enough to know either way, it's just that I never had a need for it. I'm not big on voice chatting let alone voice calls from my PC, which to me seems the main reason for using it, so my Skype icon sat gathering dust in my IM folder until the other day when Joerg got in touch. In his doing so, I was prompted to dust off my Skype icon and launch it, I wasn't at all surprised to see that the version I had (v1.2.0.48) was way out of date, the Skype Change Log informs me that it was released 20 April 2005...whoops *blush* so I trotted off to download the latest version. I downloaded Version: 2.5.0.141 (for Windows 2000 or Windows Xp) release date: 23 August 2006 file name: SkypeSetup.exe size: 10 MB) and while I was there I also grabbed version 1.4.0.49 released 11 May 2006 for my Mac.

Installation was a breeze, I can't say the same for connecting to the network though, I waited and waited, went and grabbed coffee and came back to my desk, still no joy. While Skype was continually looping through the Signing In process I hit Tools > Options > Connection and followed the link to Learn More How Skype Deals with Proxies and Firewalls, but thankfully while I was poking around there my connection was successful and I was up and running. I disconnected and closed Skype down, re-launced and I had no problems connecting at all, in fact it was a lot faster than most, so I'm picking it was a dust on my icon issue rather than a Skype issue ;)

First impression...
Skype looks and feels nice, it also has an intuitive GUI. One issue I did have, simply because I'm rather possessive about how much desktop real estate my applications use, is that I found the initial launch size a little overwhelming but this was soon rectified, Skype can be resized down to a nice compact package which makes a really nice change as some IMs have massive footprints that consume huge amounts of space and refuse to compromise.

Profiles...
File > Edit My Profile was my first port of call, I was really pleased to see that all the fields are completely optional, which also makes a nice change. My particularly interest in the Profile setup was my Avatar / Display Picture which is another personal quirk of mine, there is a huge range of avatars (60) available, all of which are stored C:\Documents and Settings\{user}\My Documents\My Skype Pictures some of which would represent my online identity quite well, but I wanted something a little more personal, so I browsed my way to my pictures folder then selected an image from the available extensions (.jpg .jpeg .bmp .png .skype). There is the option to Create My Avatar instead which will take you to Personalise Skype but I thought as I'm a complete Skype newbee I best get my head around the basics first.

Contacts...
With my profile now complete I then focused on my Contacts list. I'd already installed Skype on my Mac so my first logical step was to add that ID.

I quickly found the Add Contact button, entered the Skype ID for my Mac and hit search. My ID was located almost instantly which I was completely impressed with as at that time my main Skype window was informing me that I was only one of 4,326, 994 users currently online, so imagine how many offline users it had to search through as well! I hit Add Selected Contact, personalised the invitation, selected Show Options, which reveals if you want to share your contact details with that person, hit OK and my invitation was off into cyberspace.

Both parties get clear notification of the intent to add, while approval is pending your friend will be available on your contacts list displaying a gray Skype icon with a question mark. Once approved the icon changes and the status messages adjust accordingly.

Instant Message sessions...
My first error was assuming that the standard double click on a friends name would automatically generate a new Instant Message session... a big whoops! A quick reminder to myself that this is Skype, and doing so actually starts a Call not an IM session. If you wish to retain the default setting of Calling taking president over Chat, to create a stock standard IM with a friend either right click on your friends name and select Start Chat or use the Start Chat icon on the Tool Bar. If, like me, you will use Skype more for Chat than Calling then head to Tools > Options and under the General Setting, When I Double Click on Contact or use the Address field, select Start a Chat, then Save.

next lets cover the Emoticons available in Skype and how to use them

Links...
Skype Homepage: http://www.skype.com
Download Skype (for Windows): http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/helloagain.html
Skype Change Log (for Windows): http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/changelog.html
Skype Support: http://support.skype.com/
Skype Community Forum: http://forum.skype.com/
Skype Privacy Statement: http://www.skype.com/company/legal/privacy/privacy_general.html

Wikipedia ~ Skype http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype

onto Skype Smileys