Skype 4.0 For Linux Now Available 196
An anonymous reader writes "Anyone who uses Skype on Linux will be happy to hear that a new version has been made available today, bringing with it a host of essential updates and new features. Skype 4.0, codenamed "Four Rooms for Improvement," is long overdue, and Marco Cimmino makes a point of thanking Linux users for their patience on the Skype blog. The main improvements Skype is delivering include much improved audio call quality, better video support, and improved chat synchronization. For video specifically, Skype has spent time implementing support for a much wider range of webcams, so if your camera didn't work before today you might be surprised to find it does in Skype 4.0. Visually, Skype has received a new Conversations View, which brings all chats into a single, unified window (you can revert to the old view if you prefer). There's also a new Call View, presence and emoticons have been redesigned, and you can now store and view numbers within each Skype profile."
Re:Too late, but hey, thanks for trying Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Well under Linux many solutions such as Ekiga can accomplish this either entirely under SIP or with a bridge to other systems like XMPP. If you'd like a less technical solution, you just open an account with a provider (I use sipgate and voipcheap but there are thousands of others: http://www.moreofit.com/similar-to/www.sipgate.co.uk/Top_10_Sites_Like_Sipgate/?&page=2 [moreofit.com]), configure your client (I use the one built into Android and Yate) and go! Obviously you can't call a phonenumber with video call but SIP has an email like "address" or you can directly call international and national phone lines for voice com. I regularly talk to mobile users in Ghana from the US for around 7 - 15cents/ minute. In the US and to many european countries the calls to landlines are free and to mobiles are virtually free. All SIP to SIP calls are free with my providers.
Re:Too late, but hey, thanks for trying Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
Best avoid the Linux kernel, then; there's Microsoft code in it.
Re:Just in time for the Ads (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, but that doesn't matter to the sort of people who have turned hatred of a particular company into a sort of religion.
Re:Too late, but hey, thanks for trying Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
As another person dissatisfied with Skype, could you please take a bit of time to describe what other solutions you are using?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks.
Re:Too late, but hey, thanks for trying Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
Turns out Microsoft is really interested in your conversation with your grandma.
Possibly not. But they would be interested in cooperating with governments for this sort of behaviour.
In 2001, the Australian government refused permission for the Norwegian ship MV Tampa to enter Australian waters because it was carrying 400 refugees who had been rescued from a sinking boat. Prime Minister John Howard sent Australian special forces to board the ship and prevent the refugees from being disembarked.
This created a major controversy in the run up to a general election.
Years later, the inspector general of Intelligence and Security found that in addition to the "extensive-and legal-surveillance of communications" to and from the Tampa, the government used illegal phone taps to monitor the communications between the lawyer for the shipping line and his clients.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_affair
Re:Too late, but hey, thanks for trying Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, it is interesting that the Skype website wasn't immediately rebranded with Microsoft logos. It seems MS are underplaying their ownership of this cross platform service
It was actually a demand from Skype to be left alone as a team. Apparently, their CEO even demanded that their office keycards would have [digitaltrends.com] Skype logo on them, and not MS.
Re:Common Sense (Score:2, Interesting)
"Massive" proof of the biblical Abraham? Care to make a few citations? Enough to quality as "massive" proof would be a minimum (so I'd guess a couple of dozen of similar strength to a grave marked "The Biblical Abraham" would do it).
Also, Gilgamesh didn't become Noah. Utnapishtim eventually became Noah.
I can give a rational explanation for Islam. A man who one day started to hear voices and have visions? The same man who had headaches of increasing severity? Who eventually had intense pain in his head, that caused him to fall into a coma from which he never woke? Brain tumour.