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14680. iiibbb - 4/25/2005 3:23:07 AM I'm a sucker for a good card trick. 14681. Magoseph - 4/25/2005 11:25:15 AM iiibbb, I'm wondering how much I miss looking around me when I see something like that.
Hello, Mac! 14682. Macnas - 4/25/2005 1:05:12 PM Hey there Mago. 14683. jayackroyd - 4/25/2005 7:34:15 PM skype update
I just signed up for skype out, buying 10 euros of credit. I'm gonna be in Munich for a week, and expect to be able to find a broadband connection, either wifi in a cafe or hardwired in the hotel. It'll let me call back here for 0.013 euros per minute. I tested it locally and it worked. In principle, I could just bring my vonage box and be completely at home in europe, but then I'd have to bring a POTS phone, could only use an rj45 connection, and would have to worry about firewalls. 14684. robertjayb - 4/25/2005 8:00:57 PM WTF are you talking about? 14685. Magoseph - 4/25/2005 8:21:50 PM 0.013 euros per minute--That's cheap. It costs us 8 cents a minute to call France and Germany with MCI. 14686. jayackroyd - 4/25/2005 8:41:55 PM Sorry, robert. I couldn't remember where I'd been talking to wabbit about this.
Skype is a voice over IP service that in its main release allows you to communicate for free with other skype users. It's like an internet telephone service. I signed up because I've got relatives in Portugal and Mozamibique that would be nice to talk to for free. The cost of a call creates a sense of constraint on the conversation that vanishes when the call is free. (BTW, there are currently 2.7 million people on line on skype right now.) You need a broadband connection to support it, but the voice quality is excellent if you do.
They also have other services which are not free--among these is the ability to call any telephone from your skype account. I'm going to germany Tuesday night for a week, and would like to be able to call customers at a reasonable rate. Skype lets me do so for, as I said, 0.013 euros a minute from europe. That's way cheaper than a phone card, hotel phone or cell (my cell provider has $1.29/minute roaming charge). I'm taking the computer anyway, and my hotel has a broadband connection. So I can cheaply call the US with this feature, and am pretty happy about it. 14687. jayackroyd - 4/25/2005 8:47:30 PM Sorry, two mistakes. First, I'm not calling "from Europe" when I am there. I'm calling the US. It would cost the same if I called from here, or if I called France from Germany. The yellow places on this rate map
cost (2nd mistake) 0.017 euros regardless of where you're calling from (including the white places). I tested this by calling Jersey from here in NYC--which will have cost me 1.7 euro cents per minute. Since I spent less than a minute, I have about 587 minutes left in my 10 euro account. 14688. jayackroyd - 4/25/2005 9:03:05 PM rereading my initial message, I will decode:
vonage box: I use vonage, which is a voice over IP provider that allows me to call any telephone using my DSL connection. 500 minutes for 24.95 per month, including caller id, voice mail, internet voice mail retrieval and other stuff. I plug the vonage box into my router and my phone into the box. I could take the box with me, and make calls from my office phone number anywhere I could find a fast connection.
POTS phone: POTS= "Plain Old Telephone Service" is a widely used acronym in the telecom industry. As with most technology literature, irony abounds. What I mean here is that I'd have to bring my vonage box with me and a telephone and a cord with the standard two or four pin connection you have on your phone at home. I couldn't be sure to find such a phone in my hotel room, nor that the internet connection would be in my room.
rj45: An rj45 is the connector at the end of a network cable that plugs into the network port on your computer. It's like the plug on your telephone (an rj11) but bigger and with more pins. 14689. Ms. No - 4/25/2005 10:01:27 PM So does that mean we should all be looking forward to calls from you at odd hours due to the time change while you revel in your new technology?
14690. Magoseph - 4/25/2005 11:33:25 PM Ooh La La , nice thights, toughtful! 14691. Magoseph - 4/25/2005 11:36:07 PM The post above belongs in Escapes--see post# 3049. 14692. judithathome - 4/26/2005 12:13:18 AM Are "thights" tight thighs? ;-) 14693. robertjayb - 4/26/2005 12:16:17 AM Skype sounds terrific, jay. Another development to baffle us geezers. But it sounds like it might be practical for spouse's marathon chats with relatives and friends in Wisconsin.
14694. jayackroyd - 4/26/2005 5:09:04 AM Long distance rates in the US are so low that I don't think it really enters into it. But for international calling, it's a godsend. 14695. Magoseph - 4/26/2005 9:13:00 AM In my house, "spouse's marathon chats”, are more Flexy's than mine. Lately he has been talking to University of Chicago's classmates--these people seem to have all the time in the world to chat and what they talk about mostly is their health. If they happen to get me on the phone, puzzled by my accent, they think that I am the help here—old geezers that they are! 14696. Macnas - 4/26/2005 9:44:49 AM I'm sure you put them aright pretty fast Mago! 14697. Magoseph - 4/26/2005 9:58:13 AM There's a reunion this summer--I'll dazzle them then, Mac. 14698. Magoseph - 4/26/2005 11:46:47 AM How was the trip to Italy, Ali? 14699. alistairconnor - 4/26/2005 12:41:58 PM Excellent, Mago. I'll post some pictures and comments in a day or so.
A lot of driving - nearly 2000 km - but the kids seem to think it was worth it. So who am I to complain. (I'm only the driver...)
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