Just Keep Talking!
by Gary Woods

What could be better than making long distance phone calls for free? NOT MUCH!! Well the answer could be right in the palm of your hand. Using your Pocket PC PDA and PocketSkype, a Windows Mobile version of the Skype http://www.skype.com peer-to-peer phone service, you can talk to other Skype users from the comfort of your Wi-Fi equipped handheld. It looks and acts a lot like an instant-messaging client except that it facilitates voice calls instead of text chats.

To use PocketSkype, you must install the Windows version first on your PC. Then, once you've selected a user name and password, you can install PocketSkype on your PDA. PocketSkype requires the same username and password however for your PC and PDA, so you can't call your own PC from your PDA. You can call other Skype and PocketSkype users however, and they can call you. Thankfully, the software requires no futzing with firewalls.

The first phone call I made resulted in a lot of crosstalk and an extraordinary amount of echo at the Windows end. Lowering the microphone's sensitivity reduced the effect, but plugging a cheap pair of Radio Shack headphones into the PC eliminated the echo entirely.

As with IM clients, Skype and PocketSkype the more friends you have that use the system the cooler it becomes. So if you have friends in far off places tell them about Skype and cut your long distance bills by a whole bunch.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910