Skype

Last night Patrick Ahern and I engaged in our first Skype phone call. It was a 9 minute conversation from here in Knoxville to his home in San Diego. I was using a headset by Plantronics, and he was using the mic and the speakers on his computer. The voice quality was amazingly good, but because he wasn't using a headset, I could hear my own voice faintly picked up by his mic, since his speakers were a part of the ambient sound on his end. Although it isn't necessary to speak and then say "over" so the other person knows to go ahead and speak, there is a tendency to overtalk one another, something most of us probably do when talking on a "normal" telephone. But I suspect that more practice in using it would help to overcome that tendency. If you should decide to join in the FREE experiment with Skype, my user name on the service is (surprise!, surprise!) perrynelson. Add me to your list of contacts and let's talk.
- posted by Perry @ 6:40 AM