Skypeing...

2004-Dec-20, Monday 16:30
thorfinn: <user name="seedy_girl"> and <user name="thorfinn"> (Default)
[personal profile] thorfinn

Glee. After investigating various VoIP options, and not being satisfied with any of them, I heard from [livejournal.com profile] rickybuchanan about Skype. It's not an open source solution, AFAICT, but it just works, and it seems to be a free (as in beer) solution for Skype to Skype voice calls. They don't promise to have anything else remain free, but hey, that's fine by me.

They support an awfully large number of OSes, and whilst it does eat an awful lot of CPU (about 50% on my 1.5 GHz Powerbook G4) whilst actually running a call, this isn't surprising when you consider that they use the AES (Rijndael) cipher to encrypt call traffic. And they apparently use 1536 to 2048 bit RSA (strong public key encryption) to negotiate the symmetric key, so that should be pretty safe too. Key generation appears to happen under-the-hood somehow, and they don't say how, though. Anyway, iit sits at around the same CPU usage (flicking between 0% and 2% CPU) as my other IM clients when not actually running a call. Also, with echo cancellation turned on, it works just fine with the built in microphone and speaker... Results would no doubt be better with headphones and microphone, but the echo cancellation does work.

Anyway, I am Thorfy there... so feel free to call me.

(no subject)

Date: 2004-12-20 06:39 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bevsob.livejournal.com
I am pleased to say that I now have a headset mic so am equipped to receive calls.

(no subject)

Date: 2004-12-20 06:58 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lukeii.livejournal.com
Yeah - I was gonna start up a Skype account - only 1.7 Euro cents / minute to landline phones in the countries I call!

(no subject)

Date: 2004-12-20 10:31 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dadi.livejournal.com
I have been using it since it was in beta, and it sure works well! We save lots of money at work with it!

(no subject)

Date: 2004-12-20 12:58 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] phi1ip.livejournal.com
Thanks for the specific recommendation (one of my users came and pestered me about a week ago with, can we do VoIP on Macs yet?...)

I knew there was some stuff out there, but I'll remember the name now!

(no subject)

Date: 2004-12-20 13:46 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mordwen.livejournal.com
I feel a bit remiss here. I found Skype ages and ages ago and then did nothing about it because my iBook is too old and crappy to have a microphone. One of the reasons I want a new one is for Skype.

I think I signed up already though and I ought to be mordwen there...

(no subject)

Date: 2004-12-21 01:26 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kowari.livejournal.com
tom is on skype somewhere...Tosh or Tomble Or something like that.

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