Skype

I really use Skype very often to call for free with my friends and business partners local and long distance.
But what annoy me is that I used to need my headset and I could't leave my PC.
I own a wireless headset from Sennheiser which I bought a long time ago to hear my favorite music but i've not used it for many years because the accu was no more working. So I bought 3 new one on Ebay for some bucks.
And now I hear to videos and audios I download from the Internet when I'm leaving my office and go into the kitchen, bath or into my garden.
But this didn't helped me with my Skype calls.
Than I bought a bluetooth wireless USB adapter and plugged it into my pc, installed the driver and connected it to a microphone.
Now I have a really cheap wireless solution to talk via Skype with my friends and don't need to sit in front of my pc all the time.

The Skype toolbars bring the Skype features onto your PC and into other applications you use.

Skype Toolbar for Microsoft Office

Place calls and send the file you are currently working on via Skype. The toolbar recognizes phone numbers within your document and lets you call them using SkypeOut or send SMS messages.

Skype Email Toolbar

Bringing all your Skype and email contacts together in one handy place. You can make Skype calls to people who have emailed you and even call those not using Skype with a wonderful thing called SkypeOut.

Yahoo claims to have seen a notable jump in the amount of traffic on its VoIP phone service during the Skype outage, mimicking the results announced last week by VoIP operator Jajah.

Offers customers a free week as restitution

Skype has apologised for the network problems it experienced last week, and offered a free week to Pro, Unlimited, SkypeIn, and Voicemail customers.…

In order to make amends for its two-day sign-in outage last week, Skype is offering seven-day extensions to paid subscribers of some of its boutique services.These services include Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn and Skype Voicemail.Eligible Skype subscribers have just been notified by email, a sample of which is cited this morning by Brad Linder of Download Squad.Here’s [...]

Skype’s Villu Arak has just posted further clarifications on an earlier statement citing the cause of the recent, two-day Skype service interruption some understood as being precipitated by a surge of Skype re-connects after PCs worldwide automatically rebooted after a monthly Microsoft patch upgrade and install:We don’t blame anyone but ourselves. The Microsoft Update patches [...]

I've covered the Skype outage to death, so I'm going to pass the ball to Rich for his perspective. Rich Tehrani just posted an excellent overview of the Skype outage and the lessons learned. He discusses backup strategies and that you should stay informed on IP communications by reading leading VoIP bloggers such as Om Malik, Andy Abramson, and myself.

I'm never one to say I told you so, but it appears I was right about Windows Update (Patch Tuesday) causing the massive Skype outage. Many users were skeptical of this theory, as seen in the comments of my blog post. This from Skype Heartbeat:

Mass reboot exposes VoIP network stability bug

Skype has blamed last week's prolonged outage on the effects of Microsoft's Patch Tuesday.…