Tamas Henning

This weekend was eventful for me. I had been invited to be part of the jury of a competition I used to attend for 4 years called “Media-Info” for the second time in a row. But this year there were two twists which I didn’t expect. The first one popped up when the organizer asked me and my fellow colleagues to help out on elaborating the subjects for the second day’s exam. This was a bit of a challenge for me especially since I had to leave the country for a short while during this stage. The second twist came just days before the competition itself when I learned my dad’s company is sponsoring the competition. This was a thrill for me. I finally felt like I can give something back to the competition that gave me so much during the four years I was able to compete in it myself. In the last minute I decided to top up the prizes a little with a small gift that made me feel even better. I was able to get Skype promotional vouchers for all those who won and including those who won the special prize. This meant twelve students received 1 hour calling worth of Skype credit so they can try out calling for free. Since I got more vouchers than I have asked for, I decided to give one to Szilard Toth as well who for 6 consecutive years has been organizing this event with great success. It was a fun weekend and I really hope I was able to give a little of Skype and a little bit of me to every contestant and winner of this competition but not only. Congratulations again to those who have won

P.S. Photo’s coming soon to the gallery

Yesterday I started a poll on the Skype forum entitled In how many group chats are you participating in? This is really just to satisfy a personal curiosity since I believe that one of the best features in Skype is the group chat functionality. As I did on the poll (located here) I will start of with my numbers.

Since I use Skype for work and personal goals, on a daily basis I use over 10 chats and I’m currently subscribed (bookmarked) over 50 chats.

And to make things a little bit interesting I am also curious in one more thing. What is your personal guess on average a normal user has about how many group chats? I would guess between 2 and 5.

So what are your numbers?

Yes, I know it has been a while since I wrote something here, but there is a very good reason for it. The title should say it all. I got my self lost in the big big world which actually means midterms and work. However this period while I was lost came with a good outcome. In the next few days I will be starting a new stage in my life, but I won’t go into details until it is not official yet. But I promise I will blog about it since it is a major change in my life.

So what else has happened with me? Not that much, I had a short trip to Tallinn Estonia in December, afterwards I had a break and stood home until 8^th of February. A bit of a long vacation don’t you say? But I went away on a personal trip however I won’t detail that.

Keep your eyes peeled for the big change that will happen

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to write a blog entry. This has been caused by various reasons including school, work and a few problems I’ve had to solve over the past weeks. One major issue was that I managed to fry my old pc (blush) and had to buy a new one, however this one is a monster It’s an Intel Core 2 Quad with 4GB of RAM so you can guess it’s really hard to make the PC stall or freeze or just to eat all of the CPU.

Couple of things has happened which I think are worth mentioning.

• Skype has launched Skype for Windows 3.6 with High Quality video. This doesn’t mean HD Video (like 720p or 1080i) but it means 640×480@(25-30)FPS which can be reached by a few Logitech cams with new Carl Zeiss lens. I’ve managed to get one of these cams and try out the HQ Video feature and I was amazed how the quality defers between a normal video call and a HQ Video call.
• As I am still writing about video Skype has introduced video on a new platform: Linux!!! With Skype 2.0 (still beta) you can make video calls to either Linux, Windows or Mac users. Hopefully the next platform will be Windows Mobile
• The London SkypeIN (otherwise known 0207 SI issue)… I have to agree this was a mistake Skype shouldn’t have made or should’ve advised users at least 3 months ago that this will happen. I don’t know the exact details of what has happened between Skype and GCI Telecom however I found this post (courtesy of Skype Journal) by Jim Courtney which explains a bit more in details what has really happened.

Well that’s about it for now… I promise I’ll try to write more and not to leave my blog all alone Bye for now

I would like to start my comeback to the blogging world with an excellent news. Skype along with Hutchinson’s 3 has launched a new sensational product to the mobile market: The 3Skypephone. So what is this? It’s a mobile phone and a Skype client all in one. Yes this means if your phone is turned on, you’re signed in and you have a 3 mobile signal (you know the UMTS signal) then you’re on Skype as well. So you can be called and you can call all of your Skype contacts right out of pocket while reading in the London subway. This is truly a revolutionary product which will rattle the mobile market for years to come. I will be rather curious to see the competitor’s reactions to this launch.

What does this launch actually mean? This means the following: free international calling. If I see my friend from the US that he’s online I can call him up and we don’t pay a dime. Or why not talk for free with your friends? You both get 3Skypephones and talk until your heart pleases. Oh and I forgot to mention another feature, chat’s. Yup you can chat for free as well via Skype.

It only has one downside to me at least. I can’t get it This product is only available in Hutchinson 3 network which is not present in the Romanian market, but maybe in a while this product will be available by more operators.