So you have Skype installed on your system. Great. Now what if you want to try and call one of your friends from your locked-down work PC? Or, for that matter, any system you have physical access too? What if, for whatever reason, you can’t install Skype?
Simple—grab a thumbdrive and bring it with you. The steps are a bit complicated, but MakeUseOf has an excellent write-up of how you can transform your normal Skype executable into a portable program. Who needs a cell phone when you can have Skype on a stick?
Provided it still works once you read this, the Web service Ring2Skype is an excellent way to essentially bypass the fees that Skype would normally charge you to have a dedicated phone number. In a nutshell, a dedicated Skype number—otherwise known as an Online Number—allows anyone in the world to dial you up directly to your PC. Their call goes through on their phones; you receive the rings on your Skype client.
Ring2Skype essentially gives you a number with a unique extension—when your friends dial that up, the service will route the call to your normal Skype user ID. Simple as that.
If you’re a fan of Pidgin—and who isn’t—then know that you can indeed integrate this multipurpose desktop instant messaging client with your existing Skype client. I warn you—it’s not a seamless method by any means. You’ll still have to have Skype actually open and running on your system in order to have your friends show up in your Pidgin list. You can thank the closed-source Skype for that.
However, the Skype API Plugin presents small prices to pay if you’re the kind of person who likes mashing his or her contacts into a single, unified list. We do.
Remember that tip we gave you about making Skype portable using a USB key? What if you don’t have (or don’t want to use) a USB key? Okay. Check out the service imo.im, which presents you a super-awesome collection of messaging services that you can sign into via one unified web portal.
Seriously. The service integrates perfectly with Skype, in that you can still access all the contacts on your account, send them messages and, most importantly, pull up video and voice chats at the touch of a button. We didn’t believe it ourselves at first, but imo.im truly is the go-to solution for when you need to make a call on the run! Er, with your PC, that is.
Hello! Your friend calling! Nobody likes the monotonous task of actually having to answer the phone, be it physical or digital. But, thankfully, we have a solution for the latter when it comes to Skype. Using the useful plugin Skypeautoanswer, you can set up lists of friends with which you’d like to grant the awesome functionality present in this plugin’s name.
Add a buddy to your auto-answer list, and Skype will do just that: Pick up the phone or, if you prefer, initiate a video chat with a person as soon as the app detects that said person is ringing you up. Clever users take note: This is the perfect add-on if you just want to dial up your home PC and check out what’s happening via your webcam! It’s also a great way to show your friends just how much you care.
Oh, shoot, your boss just put his or her Skype status to “away.” Time to fire up Reddit, eh? The handy add-on VoiceGear Contact Alerter does just that—it will pop up a notification whenever any friends you’ve targeted changes their online status to any, well, status you want to configure the app for.
Confused? It’s as easy as my not-so-funny explanation. The second a contact changes to, say, “away,” or “N/A,” or “offline,” the add-on will immediately let you know of the switch via a sound and/or a custom message that you can set for each individual contact. You can also send messages to said friends the moment their status changes to a particular item—as soon as Nathan logs on, let him know that he still owes you $10 for that pizza.
Integrating Skype into your Web browser isn’t that difficult. However, if you try to look for a specific Skype extension within the standard Google or Firefox add-on repositories, you’ll be sorely disappointed. That’s because Skype’s shuffled away its one-plugin-fits-all add-on onto its own site, and the name of said tool is, “Click and Call.”
Install it, and you’ll be able to instantly click on any discernable phone number you find on the Web and call it via your Skype account. The add-on will even notify you if a particular number requires actual Skype credits or subscriptions to dial up. Simple, easy, efficient—just hard to find at first!
David Murphy used to never use Skype; He's a complete and total convert now. All Hail our New Skype Overlords.
Comments are closed on this article
Kilorad
December 11, 2010 at 6:08pm
How do you get bluetooth working well with Skype on a PC? What brand of headset, what brand of adapter? It looks like some headsets do not play well with a PC, but I know you guys can do the R&D and come out with an article.
P.S. Please dump the forum spam.
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