On 20 July 2010 08:50, C. Falconer <cfalco...@totalteam.co.nz> wrote: > Christopher Sawtell wrote, On 07/19/2010 11:21 PM: >>> >>> * Something with cheap calls to South Africa / US / UK (diasporas tend >>> to do that to you) >> >> http://www.skype.com/ >> >> Traffic costs only for computer to computer worldwide. Piffling for >> voice, and the quality far exceeds that of the POTS system. I have >> used it for far too many hours to be able to say how many. It works a >> treat. Linux version available. >> >> Small charge for computer to POTS phone. >> 0.017 Euros per min NZ to the UK >> 0.055 Euros per min NZ to South Africa > > No no no! Skype is evil and nasty and CLOSED.
Apart from the fact that it is proprietary software, what is "evil and nasty" about it? > I'm astonished that you could suggest such a thing. I'm not a total bigot over the FOSS thing. If it works properly, I'll use it with alacrity, but if it does not, then I won't cut off my nose to spite my face. I have four proprietary packages on my Linux machine, Skype, Java, Adobe flash and acroread, simply because it is impossible to function in the connected world without them. The big advantages of Skype are not only can it be installed by everybody's great Aunt Tilly, ( you only have to click the mouse twice, once to download it, once to run it ) but also it sails through firewalls because it uses ports 80 and 443 which have to be available for the 'Net to work properly. It works pretty well for me on a Telstra Cable connection. It's also fully encrypted. > We use 2talk commercially and they're sodding brilliant. "commercially" is the operative word here. You can set up the complex proxies etc. but there is no way in the world my dear old great Aunt Tilly could do so. > Skype can take a running jump and stay there. I tried running GnomeMeeting / Eikga a while ago, but it never worked reliably. and required a proxy in the firewall. The firewall was, and still is, pfSense, but the combination of Eikga and the proxy was distinctly poxy. Very poor sound vision sync on the very few occasions when it actually connected. It was effectively unusable. Things may well have changed, and I would be delighted to change to Eikga just as soon as all the wrinkles have been sorted out, and by dear old Aunt Tilly can install it at her end on all three popular platforms without needing technical support by the hour. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell
