Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Linux, assorted bits of hardware new and old, and occasionally Windows XP/Vista/7.
I started working with what we called "analog computers" in aircraft maintenance with the United States Air Force in 1970. After finishing military service and returning to university, I was introduced to microprocessors and machine language programming on Intel 4040 processors. After that I also worked on, operated and programmed Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8, PDP-11 (/45 and /70) and VAX minicomputers. I was involved with the first wave of Unix-based microcomputers, in the early '80s. I have been working in software development, operation, installation and support since then.
Last week I wrote about the technical aspects of dial-out to PSTN phones, now I would like to take a look at the costs of such calls. Of course, these vary widely based on where you are calling to, and in some cases where you are calling from, so I will just use a few simple cases to get an idea of how the programs compare.
Well, I must be completely daft. But I've said it before - I want Vista to work.
I have to start this blog entry with an apology. I wrote in December that I had tried to put some money on my SightSpeed account so that I could try their CallOut capability, but I couldn't do it because I have a Swiss credit card.
I've been experimenting this week with Gizmo5's ability to set up chat contacts not only with other Gizmo users, but also across different systems and networks. After figuring out that I was being quite naive about how to set it up and what it could do, I now have it working, and I am quite pleased and impressed with it.
Wow, what a week we had last week! It started first thing on Monday with an excellent new release from ooVoo, followed on Tuesday by Skype blundering through an attempt at a new release, and finally on Thursday Gizmo5 also made a very nice new release.
Well, as I suspected at the beginning of the week, this has been an eventful one. First an excellent new release from ooVoo, followed by a sputtering mess from Skype full of the same old bugs, and now there is a new release from The Gizmo Project.
Can you tell that I really like the saying that I used for the title of this blog entry? More importantly, and more sadly, Skype manages to prove how accurate and appropriate that saying is with every new release, and 3.
As mentioned last night, Skype appears to have made some sort of attempt to release an update yesterday. Like so many other things with Skype, it just didn't quite work right - but this time they managed to fail even earlier than usual.
In a typical show of carelessness (or incompetence), Skype has announced that they have a new version available for download, and someone from Skype Staff has suddenly appeared in their User Forums, telling people to download it to solve problems. BUT, when the poor users download what should be 3.
I've now had a day to examine, test, tinker and generally get to know the new ooVoo beta release. I have to say honestly, the more I look at it, the more impressed I am.