Technobiography

Mobile phones, services and applications. PCs, PDAs, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Internet, gadgets, electronics, photography. A technology-life journal ... Relaxed prose, sometimes witty, sometimes funny, reflective and insightful. Short and sweet. Filipino.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Edong SkypeWalker

I’ve used Skype a couple of times, mostly to talk to my sister in Australia. It works very well for people communicating across borders and across seas.

Edong SkypeWalkerMy first real conversation over Skype happened at Seattle’s Best at Rockwell via their Airborne Access WiFi connection. It was perrrrfect! My sister and I talked for almost an hour without interruptions. It was like a regular mobile phone call. A little noise or lag here and there but it was mostly good. Not to mention the savings compared to a regular IDD call.

If we had made that conversation over IDD, it would have cost us ... 50mins x 40cents/min = US$20 or Php1,100! On the other hand, I spent only P100 (for 1 hour WiFi access) for our Skype telebabad. Ang laking tipid, ‘di ba?

Another time my sister and I spoke, I was at school. We have free WiFi access there, so it didn’t cost a thing. But this time, there were noticeable lags in our conversation. I realized that the lags were caused by the photos I was sending to my sister. Apparently, when Skype is sharing the Internet bandwidth of your computer with other processes (other downloads, uploads, updates), the voice quality of the Skype conversation is affected.

It’s as if my sister’s voice is sometimes being stretched. Sometimes, there are a few split seconds that I don’t hear her.

That conversation with my sister was funny because she kept on commenting about the background noise. She asked “are those plates and spoons and forks?”. Uh huh, she heard it right. She was hearing the high frequency noise in the background while I had to shout out my words because she sometimes couldn’t hear me. That must have been due to my headset. I purposely bought a small headset so that it wouldn’t be too bulky when I put it in Kurdapia’s bag.

The last time I used Skype was when I spoke to my crazy friend in Vietnam. We passed around my headset as other classmates and schoolmates dropped in to say hi via Skype.

Edong SkypeWalker and his skype-mate: the British accent test-call girl!I haven’t been using Skype lately. Buti nalang I’ve outgrown my Skype fascination and have stopped calling that British lady phonepal for making test calls (click picture on left).

I haven’t tried using Skype on ordinary dial-up. But I’m quite sure it won’t be as good as using it via a LAN.

I’ll end by sharing a photo from an online friend, Warren Mira. If in some cases tech gets in the way, Warren’s story is one instance where we can take a break and let tech do some magic.

Read: Telebabad - ang pagbabalik, Our Weekend eSkype
Search Technobiography: Skype

Edong SkypeWalker

8 Comments:

  • At 3:58 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    i used Skype before to call my girlfriend. she can hear me very well, but it was choppy on her end when she tries to speak. reason for this is because she's using a dial-up connection. so what we did was i spoke to her like in a normal conversation and she'll reply via chat, though she used YM (in my case, Agile as I was using a Pocket PC back then) and not the chat feature of Skype.

     
  • At 3:46 pm, Blogger Edwin "ka edong" said…

    thanks for sharing, reggie my crazy friend! ;-)

    how do you communicate, nowadays?

    ka edong

    hey, heard about ka rey: MVP! wahoo! [jump]

     
  • At 4:42 pm, Blogger Jepoy said…

    i bought skypeout credits last april.. so far, hindi pa ubos ang credits ko. sobrang tipid nya pag tumawag sa landline sa USA.. 0.02 euro cents per minute lang.

    sa sound quality, ok naman. Malinaw.:~)

    http://jepoyeng.blogspot.com/2005/04/skype-and-voip.html

     
  • At 8:45 pm, Blogger Analyse said…

    been using skype before, and the best thing i like is conferencing with friends from different sides of the planet. they have interesting rates too!

    im using another service right now as i could telebabad on phil mobile phones at a local cost! cool!

    bloghopping lang po from pinoyblog..

     
  • At 12:18 am, Blogger Edwin "ka edong" said…

    jepoy,
    pano ka bumili ng credits? PayPal? Credit card?

    analyse,
    I haven't tried conferencing. Haven't had the chance. May message na lumalabas minsan saying that some of my Skype friends have a Skype version that doesn't support conferencing.

    Chocolate:
    > hindi siya mas matipid than other prepaid cards
    Ibig bang sabihin, mas-matipid sana if you used prepaid cards? Standard ba ang paid SkypeOut rates to the Philippines regardless of which country you're calling _from_ ?

    Thanks for sharing, folks!

    Yung iba kong tanong, pwedeng makuha sa FAQs ng Skype. pero tutal, andito kayo, baka pwedeng kayo ang resource persons ko. hehehe.

    mabu-hey!

    ka edong

     
  • At 12:44 am, Blogger Analyse said…

    hey ka edong,
    i was buying skypeout credits thru credit card, it's just so fast, in less than a minute, you have your skypeout loaded na.
    i havent tried conferencing thru regular skype (pc-to-pc), with skypeout (pc-to-phone), i was able to talk to my friends who were in japan and taiwan at the same time, them on their cellphones, the fees are just interesting! probably you should ask your friends to download the latest version of skype to be able to do call conf.

     
  • At 1:08 pm, Blogger Jepoy said…

    ka edong,

    via paypal. Pero nagpakahirap pa ako bago nakabili kasi hindi available yung option na paypal sa IP na galing sa Philippines. Gumamit pa ako ng proxy para makabili lang. Hehehe. 6 months ang validity ng EU10.00 na credits and hindi ka pwedeng bumili ulit hanggang hindi pa nauubos.

    Iba iba ang rates ng SkypeOut. Pag sa Philippines, mas mataas. 0.20/min.

    Skype ginagamit ni Leo Laporte for para sa podcast ng TWIT.tv nila. Sana may TechTV ulit :~(

     
  • At 1:06 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    argh! paypal!! i hope i don't get to receive your calls complaining about paypal! hehehe!

     

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