Skype Video

I have been using Skype 1 for quite some time for my Voice over IP requirements. Skype 1 is supposed to work on multiple platforms (Windows & Linux). However, I mainly used it on Windows. I tried to install it on Debian Sarge (Linux)and gave up. (Skype on Linux is an OSS application, and is not ALSA-compliant yet.)

I have a Skype story to tell. I was on a business trip to Manila, Phillipines earlier this year. I stayed in a nice hotel. I paid for the Internet surcharge, and was able to get on the Internet. I wanted to call home, and I did not want to incur the ridiculous hotel rate of making long distance overseas phone calls.

I tried to use skype, but my family members were not near the computer at the time. So, I tried to use skype out

Skype Out is a feature that lets you dial out to regular telephone numbers. So, if my wife was home (and she was), she would pick up. It is a PAID feature: you must buy on-line a fixed amount of pre-paid credit. So, I started the surprisingly ardouus on-line process of setup (or more accurately, pay-up). I was eager enough to talk to my wife that I even divulged my credit card number. But, near the end of the process, it asked me to fax in a cancelled cheque. That was the last straw. I did not have a cancelled cheque with me (who would bring a personal cheque with them on a business trip?).

My points are 2: Skype Out is a much cheaper alternative to hotel calling if you were wise enough to set it up while at home; and, why do they have to make it so difficult to set it up?

Now, a beta version of Skype 2 was released recently. It is Skype 1 with Video. It is Windows only. So, I tried to install it on my Win 2003 machine. I guess I did not pay enough attention: Skype 2 is supported on Windows XP only. So, I am out of luck here: not supported on my 2 current machines (Debian Sarge and W2K3).

If you have tried out Skype 2, please let me know what you think.

Firefox 1.5

If you haven't heard already, Firefox 1.5 is out.

So, I upgraded from 1.0 to 1.5. Overall, the upgrade was very smooth. But, you do have to be aware of the extensions. More specifically, not all 1.0 extensions will run on 1.5. In my own experience, I had 10 extensions on Firefox 1.0. Eight of them runs on 1.5 when I did the upgrade(the 2 that did not upgrade marked in Red).

• DOM Inspector
  
• Paste & Go
  
• Ad Block
  
• Linkification
  
• In form Enter
  
• IE View
  
• Tab Browser Preferences
  
• Tab Mix Plus
  
• Nuke Anything Enhanced 0.51
  
• LeechGet Mozilla Menu Extension 0.6.1
  
  

The upgrade program will actually warn you about the extensions that won't upgrade. It would just mark them but not delete them from the list. That is good because a couple of weeks later, I revisited the list, and noticed that an upgrade is available for LeechGet Mozillan Menu Extension (0.7.1), and lo and behold, it does support Firefox release 1.5.

9 out of 10 is pretty good. But if you absolutely cannot live without certain extension, just make sure that it supports 1.5 before you do the upgrade.

Red Hat Off

I have always used the Red Hat Linux distribution; the last Redhat version I used being RedHat Enterprise Linux release 2.

Recently, as my blog attests, I tried the ubuntu Linux LiveCD version. That was my first foray into non-RedHat Linux. The LiveCD system runs a little too slow for me to be useful in day-to-day operations. To be fair, it did warn me about performance, and my machine only had 256M memory at the time. But, I liked it enough that when it came time to build a Linux system, I chose Debian Sarge (ubuntu is based on Debian).

I installed Debian Sarge on a brand new system. I chose the floppy disk install medium due to necessity. No access to CD-burner at the time. The floppy disk method worked. If you had previously installed any Linux distribution, you probably would have no problem installing Debian Sarge.

I have an observation about Debian Sarge. The base install actually installed the very minimum packages. The Debian installer does not let you choose the packages that you want install. You will want to subsequently install any additional packages that you need after the base install. Contrast that with the RedHat I used(Release 6-9), where you can choose what modules to install during the install process. However, with RedHat, I normally would just install all any way.

To install additional packages on Sarge, you use the apt-get (command-line) or Synaptic (GUI). The Synaptic program is just EXCELLENT. It handles all dependencies for you. You can search for packages easily. It is so good that I may just have to write about it in future blog entries.

In fact, I would say that the Debian package manager system is one feature that would keep me from going back to use RedHat.