Skype has always treated their customers with utter contempt, by refusing to provide any Customer Support (other than a mindless auto-responder which appears to mail out random replies to support requests), by blocking user's paid accounts at random, and often repeatedly, and refusing to answer any queries about such blocked accounts for a minimum of four days, and by producing continually worse and more buggy software with each new release. Until now, the one recourse that Skype users had which offered at least a thread of hope for getting help was the Skype User Forums. Now it appears that Skype has found a way to degrade even that for their users.

The Skype User Forums have been changed to a completely new format. The organization is inscrutable, to say the least (bizarre is probably more accurate). The only reason for it that I can think of is to attempt to prevent anyone from seeing the number and variety of problems that are being discussed there. Even worse, within each category there is, amazingly, no way to simply move from one thread to the next (or previous), so it is impossible to just sit down and read a topic sequentially. What possible reason is there for doing this, other than to prevent someone from reading all of the threads in one category, and really getting a feel for the number of problems being posted? Similarly, the "read new posts" function has no relation to what posts you have previously read, it only shows "new" posts since the last time you logged on. If you left anything unread the last time, you're out of luck. Again, what possible reason could there be fore this other than hiding information?

The effect that the new forum is having on users is obvious - the quantity of posts each day has gone down by at least a factor of 10 since they were introduced. I suppose this means that Skype is achieving their objective - get rid of all those pesky users who are having problems with Skype and insist on talking about it!

jw 19/4/2008

I'm wondering if anyone else has seen anything that looks like a memory leak in Vista? I've been running Vista Business on my Lifebook S6510 for several weeks now, and overall I'm pleased - at least pleased enough to keep it this time, rather than retreating to XP Pro again. But I've started to notice a correlation between some odd behavior of the laptop and steadily increasing memory use, so before spending a lot of time trying to track this down, I'm hoping someone else has seen the same thing.

I keep the standard Vista CPU Meter gadget running in the Vista Sidebar all the time. When I boot Vista, once everything settles down it shows memory use of about 40% (I have 3 GB installed). As I do my normal work over a period of a day or two, and generally across several sleep/resume cycles, the memory use slowly climbs until it gets to around 70%. I have then stopped all of the user programs that I have running, and even stopped the Internet Security program that I use, and the memory use only goes down by 3% or so. I have checked the memory use for remaining processes in the Windows Task Manager, and while a couple of things are using noticeably more memory than they were at boot (dwm.exe and explorer.exe, for example), nothing is using anything near the amount it would take to account for the increase shown by the CPU Meter.

So, before I break out the more serious tools, does anyone know about Vista itself, or any of the standard system processes, having a memory leak?

jw 17/4/2008

I got a very nice example this evening of how all of the things I have been writing about here can come together and work really nicely. I was on the train, on the way home, and was text chatting with a friend via ooVoo. I mentioned to him that I was on the train, and was connected via my cellular modem. He thought that sounded pretty cool, and asked if I would like to try a video call. I was skeptical, because my previous tests with that modem, even with an HSDPA connection, had not produced very good results even on audio-only calls. But I'm just about always willing to at least try, so he called me... and it worked great! I mean, not just "acceptable", it was really good! Audio was flawless, and video was consistently smooth and clear. I have written before about all of the things that were involved in this:

- ooVoo: the new release, 1.5, is just great. There's just not a lot more to be said about it, it works really well, and it doesn't make a big fuss about it.

- Sierra Wireless AirCard GSM data card: At the time I made the call, it said that it had an HSDPA connection; although the card is supposed to be HSUPA capable, I have never seen it report an HSUPA (or HSPA) connection. I don't know if that is because Swisscom isn't doing HSUPA yet, or if the software isn't able to report it yet. I checked one of the VoIP speed test sites before making the call, and it said that I was getting approximately 250Kbps both up and down.

- Fujitsu Lifebook S6510: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, Vista SP1, and a built-in Logitech webcam, Realtek audio and integrated speakers and microphone, it was ready and up to the task.

- Logitech Premium Notebook Headset: I decided that the people around me on the train weren't interested in what I was doing, and didn't want to be bothered by it, so rather than use the built-in audio, I plugged this in quickly.

It is really gratifying when a number of different things that I have been talking about, and recommending, work together to produce something really useful. I hope that it provides some useful information and examples to some other people as well.

jw 14/4/2008

Logitech has released a new version (11.7) of their QuickCam software package. It is not yet being offered automatically by their webcam support web page, but it can be downloaded from their FTP site:

ftp://ftp.logitech.com/pub/techsupport/quickcam/qc1170.exe

There is also a 64-bit version available (qc1170_x64.exe). The package contains new drivers for most of their currently available webcams, and a new QuickCam application software release.

There is at least one piece of very good news in this release for those who use Logitech webcams with Video IM programs. They have added a new option to prevent the QuickCam "Ribbon" from popping up every time the camera is accessed.

For those who like to "peek ahead", there appears to be support for at least four or five new webcams in this software, including what looks like two new "series" (Exxxx and Sxxxx) and a new model of the Communicate Deluxe.

Here's an interesting thread to read in the Skype User Forums:

http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=115181

The "Reader's Digest" version is that until late last year, Skype offered an "Unlimited Calling Plan", for $15 a year or so, you could make all calls in the U.S. and Canada for free. This plan was discontinued at the end of last year, but of course there are still a lot of people whose subscription has not yet expired. I seems that suddenly ALL calls made by people with this plan are being cut off after 5 seconds or so - quite a radical change, from "unlimited calling" to "say it in 5 seconds or lose".

Of course, Skype's non-existent "customer support" has nothing useful to say about this (or more often nothing to say at all), and the "experts" in the Skype User Forums are busily trying to blame it on the users, their computers, their ISPs, their pets and houseplants, or anything else. In the meantime, these users can't make any phone calls.

This is, unfortunately, typical of Skype service and Skype support.

jw 11/4/2008

Added: This is essentially a replay of what happened in January to the Skype users who had the Unlimited Calling Plan and switched to Skype Pro. They were unable to make any calls longer than 5 seconds, and it took weeks for Skype to fix it. Let's hope they do better this time. Hope, but don't expect.