With so many smartphones available in the market right now, somehow I could understand why there still many users who would stick with the old and trusty Nokia handsets. At least Nokia is exerting all its effort to make their mobile devices, specifically smarthphones to be at par with other brands.

Nokia’s latest effort to spike interest to its smartphone product line is through the integration of Skype. Both Skype and Nokia are announcing the new Skype for Symbian app which is available for download from the Ovi Store or direct from Skype – for free.

With Skype on Nokia phones running Symbian S^1, which is actually the latest version of this Nokia mobile platform, you can do the following:

• make free Skype-to-Skype calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world
• save money on calls and texts with our low rates
• send and receive instant messages to and from individuals or groups
• share pictures, videos and other files
• receive calls to your online number
• see when Skype contacts are online and available to call or IM
• easily import names and numbers from the phone’s address book

In other words, you can practically use all the features that you would normally enjoy from the desktop Skype software.

And in case you’re interested to know whether you Nokia smartphone supports Skype for Symbian, take a look at this long list of Nokia devices:

Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia 5530 and the following non-touch devices: Nokia E72, Nokia E71, Nokia E90, Nokia E63, Nokia E66, Nokia E51, Nokia N96, Nokia N95, Nokia N95 8Gb, Nokia N85, Nokia N82, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8 Gb, Nokia N79, Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 classic, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia 5320.

Now, there are two points that make this news interesting. One is the fact that this expands Skype’s userbase if in case all those Nokia users would download and use the app. And the other is the fact that this would somehow  diminsh the usual habit of making cellular calls using the traditional way.

So, are you going to use Skype on your Nokia smartphone? If you do, please share with us your experience as I’m pretty sure the three of us here in Rotorblog (Me, Maris and Andrew) won’t be able to experience this.

Specifically the Skype iPhone app lets you do the following:

• Make free Skype-to-Skype calls from any Wi-Fi zone to other Skype users

• Call landline or mobile phones at low rates from any WiFi zone.
• Send/receive instant messages to/from individuals or groups via 3G, Wi-Fi, GPRS or EDGE (whichever is available)
• Receive calls to a personal online number on Skype
• See when Skype contacts are online/available to IM or talk

The Skype iPhone app also displays your Skype Contacts’ photos when you view your Contacts list. It also allows you to update your own Skype profile picture using your iPhone’s camera to take new photos of yourself, or use an existing photo from your iPhone’s photo album.

I’ve just installed the application on my iPhone and tried calling a friend’s Skype number. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear him speak since he doesn’t have a mic installed on his PC. But he said that he can hear me pretty clearly.

What I noticed though when making Skype-to-Skype calls or perhaps even when calling landline or mobile numbers is that it takes a longer time to connect a call. The application routes the call first before connecting. This might make an impression that the application is not actually working.

But other than that, I would have to say that the Skype iPhone app is pretty much a robust and well developed application. And I could see Skype getting a usage boost from iPhone numbers who have been waiting to have this application on their iPhone.

If you want to test the app, feel free to add my Skype account -> aczafra

via

If you’re at the receiving end of this feature, you can listen to the full voice message by either signing into Skype or by calling the Skype To Go Number.  You’d also be able to receive voicemail as text via Spin Vox. From there, you can opt to receive voicemail notification via SMS or by email.

By using SpinVox with your Skype account, you are giving yourself some added flexibility and convenience. The SpinVox voice-to-text service extends your Skype’s functionality as well as  allows you to take your Skype conversations where ever you go. 

But wait, this may be a cool and useful feature that you can use on your Skype. However, the service is not free. Each converted voice mail will set you back $.25 plus the SMS data cost which depends on your mobile carrier.

Now, to cushion the cost of the service as well as prevent you from incurring too much costs when using the service, you will be given the option to limit the number of voicemail conversions that you want to receive every day. You can also specify to receive converted message from a specific people on your contact list.

More details about this service can be found here.

Next, Skype 4.0 audio codec now uses 50% less bandwidth than before. It also features super wideband audio capable of delivering crystal clear sound if you use a compatible headset and high-quality broadband. The new bandwidth manager works well with the codec in adjusting those bad bandwidth conditions to ensure that you’d a more reliable sound during Skype sessions.

And finally, Skype 4.0 has made it even easier to set up your Skype equipements – headset, microphone and webcam ensuring that you’d start Skypeing as soon as you have those accessories ready. Skype 4.0 offers a new Conversations Tab which makes tracking of multiple conversations easier and faster.  You can also quickly switch from one Skype services to another quickly using this conversations tab.  And finally, Skype 4.0 offers two different views of the Skype session, the Default View or the Compact View which allows you to resize conversation Windows or separate them one by one.

If you want to upgrade your Skype installation, visit this download page.

Every established medium gets its own award show; why should Twitter be any different?

That’s right folks, it’s time to pay your respects to the very best visionaries who were able to hammer out 140 characters. Whether you have spotted the smartest, funniest or snarkiest tweet – nominate your favorites.

There is no registration and the winners will be announced on October 1.

Check it out here and view a full list of awards below. You can also grab a badge to help promote the effort.

Categories:

Best Tweet
Which Tweet takes the cake?
Funniest Tweet
Which Tweet makes your sides split?
Smartest Tweet
Which Tweet flew right over your head?
Best Avatar
Which avatar beats the rest?
Most Informative Tweet
Which Tweet informed you better than Matt Lauer?
Best Use of Twitter to Break News
Which Tweet kept you most up to date?
Best Putdown
Which Tweet would make your mama proud?
Snarkiest Tweet
Which Tweet is razor sharp?
Dopiest Tweet
Which Tweet gives new meaning to moronic?
Best Use of Twitter for Business
Which Tweet has the most business savvy?
Best Use of Twitter for Journalism
Which Tweet belongs in the New York Times?
Best Use of Twitter by Media
Which Tweet is the most media friendly?
Best Flirtation
Which Tweet makes you blush?
Best Straight Man
Which Tweet is the best comedic backboard?

I wouldn’t expect any red carpets or drunken acceptance speeches.

While you’re at it, you should be following me too!

To use Skype for Mobile, visit its site and download the application directly to your mobile phone. Or if you want, you can download the application first into your PC and transfer it later on to your mobile phone.

If you’re going to ask how much it would cost you to use Skype for Mobile, it depends actually on the type of Skype that you are going to use.

To call a landline or mobile phone, the normal cost of making those calls depending on your network’s charges plus SkypeOut rate to the destination you’re calling.

To call your Skype contact, the cost is equivalent to the local or national call cost on your mobile phone network.

To send IM and staying online on Skype, the cost would depend on the amount of data you used. The more data you use, the higher your charges will be.

To receive calls from Skype contacts, SkypeOut charges of the country where you are will apply.

Call Graph is a startup that is hoping to gain traction by offering a free service to Skype users. With Call Graph’s Skype recorder you can do the following:

Automatic Skype call recording without any intervention of whatsoever. You can set the directory where the recorded Skype conversation will be stored. You can also stop the recording anytime you want to. Call Graph will also notify as you start with a Skype conversation on how you can start recording.

Automatically tags and manage your Skype calls with the display name of the contact your are talking to. You can edit these tags with any tags that you think can help you to effectively identify the Skype calls. Likewise, these tags are used by Call Graph for indexing and filling.

Indexing and searching of your recorded Skype calls can be easily done though the tags you specified. Call Graph easily looks for a call from a particular contact using the tags.

Notification by Call Graph is done un-intrusively. The notification application runs as a Windows task bar icon while the notification appears as a sliding window over the task bar. This notification automatically disappears after some time.
To use Call Graph, you will need to download the application installer here.

It’s nothing new – Skype with video support is out there for a while now and it is interesting to see that people are discovering the possibilities and how easy it is only now. But, yes – I’m a fanatic Skype user and of course for big companies it takes a while to accept new things.

“I didn’t want to take this guy and his family away from vacation and send him to Oahu (where there would be other facilities),” CNN senior vp David Bohrman said. “I thought it would have been really annoying.”

Looking for another way, CNN’s tech staff and producers discovered that some technicians had been experimenting with a feed from Skype, the eBay-owned videophone service that offers free voice and webcam calls over the Internet.

“They had done a bunch of tests and were itching to try it,” Bohrman said. “No one had ever done it, as far as they knew.”

Some compliments also:

Bohrman said he was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the video.

“Other than that the lighting wasn’t perfect, it worked really well,” Bohrman said. “It looked as good or better than the broadband with more complex technology.”

Hey dude – do you use Skype?

Now you can speak to your friends using MySpaceIM because now MySpace and Skype are best friends! And they are giving gifts to every user (remember – it’s Christmas time) – you can call to a phone within your own country for free. But remember to keep it short because you have only 10 minutes! Of course calls to friends IM are completely free and you can enjoy conversation instead of typing.

Did you know?

By subscribing to RotorBlog’s feed you will receive a lot more interesting information – isn’t that something you always wanted?

Using IM+ you can call other Skype users over the world, call for a low fee, see who is online and chat with other Skype users. Speaking about calling – IM+ is based on SkypeOut service that offers low fees and will help you to save money for calls. Also the price for IM+ isn’t huge $25 is good deal on my opinion and you will get back all the money by low cost calls very soon. 25 bucks is one time fee and all further updates are included. You can also try this service for free – 10 days is enough time to make your choice.

Skype Journal made really nice picture to show how this Skype worm works and also giving a short insight to the future possibilities oh similar worms and damage they can bring.

Maybe this worm was something like test version of more advanced attacks and in future – similar worms can hold some ‘features’ for stealing info and user data from our computers and Skype accounts. While you can use tips how to remove this worm manually Skype programmers must really think about security aspects of the product or it may expect big problems in future.

Rebtel is using very clever solution to bypass expensive fees for international calls from your operator – they give you both local numbers to call to instead of calling to other country. Your mobile operator don’t see the international call and it means that you must pay only for the regular local call. It is very, very easy to use and in the end of the month your will be happy to receive your phone bill.

But that’s not all – I don’t know why but Rebtel provide information how you can reduce your bill even more – without paying Rebtel also! :) Here is a video tutorial how to use this service and bypass Rebtel fee also – just don’t tell anyone! ;)

- Group contacts;
- Apple Address Book contacts in Skype;
- Create and manage public chats;
- Auto Redial;
- Easy sound-level controls;
- Overhauled file transfer;

Full feature description you can find at official Skype blog.

Download Skype 2.7 for Mac beta

Actually I trust Skype and believe that you can get in trouble only if you don’t pay enough attention what are you downloading and what links are you clicking at Skype. I haven’t heard that Skype have any serious problems with the security without help of the user itself. So it means that you can avoid all these problems by using Skype carefully and paying more attention to security.

1. Don’t click on links sent by unknown contacts.

I have received messages from unknown people that isn’t even in my contacts with suspicious links inside the message – don’t click on them unless you don’t want to get some “creature” in your computer.

2. Ask your friends for confirmation of suspicious links they sent.

Some Skype worms is sending the same link to all contacts from victims Skype account so you can get infected by receiving message and opening link from your friends message.

3. Don’t download any suspicious file from unknown senders and without confirmation.

Most of viruses will work only if you download them – be carefully with downloading files through Skype.

I hope this information will prevent you from any Skype viruses and will make Skype usage more secure for you and your friends.

The best thing about Anothr is that you don’t need do download any additional software or even register account – all you need to do is add Anothr to your contact list and later subscribe to feeds. You will see the message with the new post, when it will be published and there will be no need to check your feed aggregator for new posts every five minutes. But I must agree with Darren that you must choose only the most important feeds, because it is too irritating to receive a notification every time when someone posts an article.

But actually is works very well also like comment notifier. I, for example, added RotorBlog comment feed and now when people post a comment in my blog, so I can read it almost immediately and post an answer. But again you must be careful – it works fine when number of comments that you receive is relatively low.

For many readers, I think, Last.fm isn’t unknown title, but if you don’t know anything about it Last.fm is internet radio that analyze your favorite artists and offer you to listen to artists that you may like. Now Skype users also have possibility to use Last.fm radio together with other extras.

Features:
- Personal ad-free radio based on your favourite artist
- Real-time information about the artist you’re listening to
- Share what you’re listening to with your mood message (displays the current track next to your Skype name)
- Tell a friend – recommend the current track you’re listening to
- Unintrusive – the radio will fade in and out when you receive calls.

I recommend this Skype extra for all music fans, because i think Last.fm Internet radio is the best. If you have other Skype extra that you think is the greatest don’t be shy and drop a comment below and share your opinion with others.

If you are interested on Internet radio you can read also my articles about Radio.Blog.Club and Blogmusik.

Yes, the preview means that the video is before even Beta version, but I’m glad that Skype finally pay attention to Mac users and have remembered that such people exists. I like this sentence also very much – Video has arrived – If you’re brave! – I even see how Mac users are clicking on the Download button after reading so optimistic slogan. :)
I’m also very glad to read that they also admit their slow work on video for Mac.

“I’m happy to write this because video has been the number one thing requested in Skype for Mac since… well, pretty much ever since we released Skype a few years ago.”

Anyway – they finally started to improve life for Mac users and that is fantastic. I hope that Mac version of Skype will be some day so good as Skype version for PC! (Keep dreaming…)

How to use hidden emoticons? Actually it is pretty simple – you just need to enter the smiley code while chatting with your friends – for example type ‘(drunk)’ to display smiley who have had couple beers :)

Icon	Name	Type
	Mooning	(mooning)
	Finger	(finger)
	Bandit	(bandit)
	Drunk	(drunk)
	Smoking	(smoking)(smoke)(ci)
	Toivo	(toivo)
	Rock	(rock)
	Headbang	(headbang)(banghead)
	Bug	(bug)
	Fubar	(fubar)
	Poolparty	(poolparty)
	Swearing	(swear)
	TMI	(tmi)
	Heidy	(heidy)
	MySpace (Skype v3.6)	(myspace)

Skype emoticons (bandit) (drunk) (finger) (headbang) (banghead) (mooning) (rock) (smoking) (smoke) (ci) (toivo) work with Skype 2.5 and 3.0!

Smileys (bug) (fubar) (poolparty) (swear) (tmi) work only with Skype 3.0 and up!

Any new emoticons? Post a comment below this post!

Phone will be available to buy on July 2006 and tou will be able to buy it on Skype accessories shop.

Skype phone features:

• Call anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world for free, no PC required
• Make and receive Skype phone calls wherever you have WiFi, wireless Internet access
• Call any phone worldwide for pennies per minute and with NO MONTHLY FEES
• Manage your contact list and displays who’s available to talk
• Can forward your calls to your mobile, landline or to another Skype Name

The price for this device will be approximately 250$ and I think it is good investment because Skype calls is much cheaper and for USA and Canadian users it is free!

Tags: Skype phone, skype, Netgear, rotorblog

Welcome to the preview of Skypecasts: a new way to have conversations with people across the world who share your interests. Find out more.

I have listen to one podcast and there was used skypecast and conversation was recorded- it was amazing – when they started skypecast they was only two and then other people joined them and all together they have really nice chat about some Internet projects like digg.com and one of digg.com clones – digg.lv. The most coolest thing is that it is very easy to use and possibilities what such service offers will be used very widely.

Tags: skype skypecast podcast