I love living in this period of technology. I have no idea what will happen after I die, but I am sure that I will enjoy most of the new inventions that come along for the rest of my life. This is so cool!

At the recommendation of Andreas Ramos in his free, brief, monthly newsletter for which anyone can sign up at his website, I downloaded and installed a free program called Skype, which is available for Mac, Windows PC, Linux and Pocket PC (we have it installed on our Mac and our PC computers…drdarrow is our username on Skype) which allows telephone conversations via the internet anywhere in the world. Free. If the other person has Skype and a broadband connection (maybe slower, too. I dunno…) and a special $7 headset like my Labtech, which has a separate plug for Mic and Speaker, you can converse for free anywhere in the world.

I installed mine a week ago and have been chatting free with my sister in Tigard, Oregon any time of day. Tonight, Joanne, a friend of ours that lives in Genoa, Italy with a home overlooking the Mediterranean installed Skype and apparently she imported all her Outlook Contacts and found us as Skype users, and sent a request to be added to our contacts list. Within a few seconds we were talking to our friend in Italy! Free!

The audio quality is better than telephones. It’s more like what you would hear on a radio talk-show. I mean, it is a lot better.

There was no delay (until we switched the audio to external speakers so that Teresa and I could both hear the conversation while she talked. The very slight delay is a feature that prevents feedback). The headset conversation was as instant as a telephone, but so much better!

Skype also offers an optional pay-in-advance plan that allows you to purchase minutes at about 2 cents per minute which lets you call by internet to any phone number in the world, no limit, no minimum, no contract, no premium hours.

We got to talk to Joanne in Italy for ten minutes, free, using the free version. It’s always free to talk to someone else who has Skype.

This is so cool!