Why did they ruin Skype

On 26/11/2016 11:32 AM, micky wrote:

But all of these are tolerable now that I found Light Mode. I've only
used Skype a lot when my home phone was not working for a few days. Only
a little other times.

These days people are mad with using Whatsapp and Facebook. I dunno
where Skype stands now... shared whiteboard?

Per Mr. Man-wai Chang:
These days people are mad with using Whatsapp and Facebook. I dunno
where Skype stands now... shared whiteboard?

I suspect one of Skype's main attractions is it's user base.

Personally, I prefer WeChat - partially because it offers so many
options..... only thing missing for me is the ability to optionally use
the phone network for texting - because I don't have a data plan and
sometimes WiFi is unavailable.
--
Pete Cresswell

On 25/11/2016 07:32, micky wrote:
Rant number 75.

For some reason I looked at Skype on win10. They call it Skype Preview
and it comes preloaded, but apparently it's not a preview of better
things to come, it's the only Skype you can get.

But they don't tell you this so I had to google skype and when that
didn't help I googled skype win10 and you'd think that would do it
but I still had to hunt before I found that Skype Preview was the only
Skype I could get.

Who says?

I've seem windows 10 PCs running Skype 7.something just fine as far as I
could see. It looked just like the Skype I run on My Windows 7 laptop.

snip

--

Brian Gregory (in the UK).
To email me please remove all the letter vee from my email address.

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 07:14:57
-0800, pyotr filipivich wrote:

micky on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 03:22:36 -0500
typed in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general the following:

There is also Skype Wifi for phones but I think it's separate from
Skype.

There are days when I consider adding the phone call to
non-Internet sites option.

??

As I recall, Skype out of the box will let you connect to another
Skype user "VOIP". For an additional fee, they would also let you
call "normal" telephones, that is I can use Skype to call directory
assistance, or my wife's sister's smart phone, who despite having an
East Coast number is actually in Nepal, etc, etc.

Oh. I didnt' think of it as an option, but you do have to put money in
a skype account and the minimum to start was probably $10, no more.

Then if you don't use any for a long time, it goes dormant but you can
now revitalize it by logging into your webpage and clicking. Easy
enough once you're there.

Better than net2phon that said they'd mail me a headset and didn't and
then I thought they went out of business before I used up the money I
put in, but now I'm not sure they're out of business.

But I don't make enough calls to rationalize it.

Neither do I really, whatever you mean. I just enjoy this sort of
thing. I wish I owned a business so I could buy more business
computers, copiers, servers, etc. I'd probably fiddle with them all
day long and go bankrupt.

Oh, it is all cool stuff, but - can I justify "this"? I want a
printer which can handle double sided printing on legal size paper.
Heck, I want a printer which will handle A3 or even A2 sized pages.
Why? "Because." Just as I want a print shop, even though I just want
to make _a_ copy of _one_ book.

I can relate to all of this. My Epson Workforce 645 -- they're probably
selling a later model now , but it was $150 the last I looked (I paid
100) has a setting for scanning legal size, but the paper tray that
came with it only handles letter size and there is no provision for
putting a sheet in manually, no provision for putting in one page at a
time (or one piece of celluloid, for that matter.)

But it does make two sided copies, though I'm not sure I've ever done
that.

OTOH, the Brother I found sitting on the grass next to the curb (and
which I verified was being discardedd from the guy living in the house
it was in front of ) does for sure make 2-side copies, very nicely.
It's amazing, because I haven't figured out yet how they flip the paper
over. I guess they flip it and print the other side bottom to top
instead of top to bottom. Model number on request, I don't know it by
heart.

It's actually a better printer than the one I bought new.

For the Epson I bought cheap ink (didn't need to use a resetting tool or
anything) and didn't understand how to install the new black cartridge
and maybe that's why it showed as 3/4 empty right away, but the second
replacement worked for a long time.

Well it emptied a couple days ago and when I put in the third the
printer complained it wasn't genuine. and put a big X next to on-screen
image of the black cartridge. . Before I had a chance to worry about
that, the X went away and all 4 cartridges were labeled Genuine, even
though none are, on screen. But when I print, there is a blue heading
and just trace amounts of black.

If I had to pay the Epson price for black ink, printing the crossword
puzzles would be "expensive".

Fnord, I want that voice activated interface like in the TV shows,
where I say "Do this" and boom, the computer does it with no glitches,
and gets it perfect the first time. Sheesh, I can't even get that
when I deal with humans (The first "voice activated interface.")

I want voice activated too, but then I'd have to reenroll in elocution
lessons. I havent' had any since I was 9 and the effect is wearing off,
or maybe I'd have to stop drinking.

I noticed my new Android phone is Android and doesn't have Siri, but it
still answered a couple questions, out loud. But I guess it bored me
because I haven't tried that since the first week

My friend who owns a burglar alarm business and goes to see a lot of
clients (plus still doing some hardware work) He uses the phone a lot
while driving and he has a phone that will dial if he says five two
three... etc. but he doesn't want to memorize numbers or have to say
10numbers distinctly. He wants to be able to say Office and have it
call the office, or even Two if the office is known as two, or Jones if
someone in his address book is named Jones. It won't do that, or at
least 2 years ago his phone wouldn't do that.

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 09:23:05
-0500, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

Per pyotr filipivich:
Oh it does. have a friend who blames pot as the gateway drug. 'If
it wasn't for pot, I'd never have started smoking tobacco!"

To the extent that pot compromises one's judgment and (in my experience,
anyhow) cuts a few points off of one's IQ, I would say he may be on to
something.

What I was thinking is that the last time I had a puff of a cigarette I
was 8 years old and my uncle** had fun laughing at me when I choked, so
my only experience with smoking is that it chokes me.

If I learned how to smoke pot, I would know how to smoke without choking
and that major impediment would be gone.


**I didn't know, still don't, if my uncle offered me the cigarette just
so he could laugh at me, or like an adult sharing an adult thing with a
kid, like giving a kit a taste of whiskey, or specifically to make me
never want to smoke. There were 6 other family members there, and if
they were paying attention they woudl have all seen it, but no one said
anything, unless they laughed too.

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 23:17:09
+0800, "Mr. Man-wai Chang" wrote:

On 26/11/2016 11:32 AM, micky wrote:

But all of these are tolerable now that I found Light Mode. I've only
used Skype a lot when my home phone was not working for a few days. Only
a little other times.

These days people are mad with using Whatsapp and Facebook. I dunno
where Skype stands now... shared whiteboard?

I used Whatsapp once to call Asia. So cool. But the other person has
to have it running on his cell phone. Skype can call landlines.

And for more money you can get a skype phone number so that landlines
can call you and leavfe a message. I assume this is less money to the
callers than other means of making international calls.


However I went into settings today to try test my microphone*** and I
clicked on Test Audio and nothing happened. It used to allow you to
set the level, and there use to be a phone number you could call and
talk to and it would play back what you said so yo'd know if the volume
were right. None of that was there afaict.

***I've got a new bluetooth one ear headset that I've tried to make
work. Even though it says in my ear that it's connected and says on the
screen that it's paired and under Sound it's listed as both a mike and a
speaker (twice each for that matter, with slightly different names), I
can't hear anything out of the earpiece and I wanted to test the mike.

I know tbe earpiece basically works because when I'm in Sound / Sounds
and I 'test" various sounds like beep and windows startup I hear them in
my ear, but nothing else.

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 11:27:55
-0500, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

Per Mr. Man-wai Chang:
These days people are mad with using Whatsapp and Facebook. I dunno
where Skype stands now... shared whiteboard?

I suspect one of Skype's main attractions is it's user base.

Personally, I prefer WeChat - partially because it offers so many
options..... only thing missing for me is the ability to optionally use
the phone network for texting - because I don't have a data plan and
sometimes WiFi is unavailable.

Is this a PC program or cell phone app?.

For PC's there aemail addresses for each cellphone company. append the
phone number and it will let you email a text to a cell phone,

I sent one whose text was 1234567890123456789123... so it would be easy
to count how many characters were received in the text and I forget now
(probalby about 120. I assume there was overhead.) and the remainder
showed up immediately and automatically in a second text.

In message , micky
writes:
[]
***I've got a new bluetooth one ear headset that I've tried to make
work. Even though it says in my ear that it's connected and says on the
screen that it's paired and under Sound it's listed as both a mike and a
speaker (twice each for that matter, with slightly different names), I
can't hear anything out of the earpiece and I wanted to test the mike.

I know tbe earpiece basically works because when I'm in Sound / Sounds
and I 'test" various sounds like beep and windows startup I hear them in
my ear, but nothing else.

Not sure which OS you're running, as I'm seeing this in the XP and 10
groups. (I take XP and 7, but I can see the headers.)

On 7, and I suspect 10, you can have different sound hardware set up for
different things - the usual reason being to keep music playing, and
usually system sounds like the beep and startup, coming out of the
speaker, but to route communications (Skype etc.) to a headset. Sounds
to me like you've got system sounds routed to your bluetooth earpiece
(and possibly not "communications"). There's a similar routing for sound
input, e. g. the microphone.

(AFAIK, XP has no such separation - it just uses one lot of hardware for
input, and one lot [can be the same, e. g. card or headset-pod] for
output, and doesn't use any _other_ hardware present at all. There _may_
be special drivers supplied by some hardware manufacturers that allow
diverse uses.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts.

Brian Gregory wrote:
On 25/11/2016 07:32, micky wrote:
Rant number 75.

For some reason I looked at Skype on win10. They call it Skype Preview
and it comes preloaded, but apparently it's not a preview of better
things to come, it's the only Skype you can get.

But they don't tell you this so I had to google skype and when that
didn't help I googled skype win10 and you'd think that would do it
but I still had to hunt before I found that Skype Preview was the only
Skype I could get.

Who says?

I've seem windows 10 PCs running Skype 7.something just fine as far as I
could see. It looked just like the Skype I run on My Windows 7 laptop.

snip

Same here. No problems. I orioginally installed Skype under Win 7 and
then did the free upgrade to Win 10 and it works the same as under Win
7. My version is 7.30.64.105 which, according to Skype Help, is the
latest version.

micky on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 21:39:01 -0500
typed in microsoft.public.windowsxp.general the following:
In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sat, 26 Nov 2016 09:23:05
-0500, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:

Per pyotr filipivich:
Oh it does. have a friend who blames pot as the gateway drug. 'If
it wasn't for pot, I'd never have started smoking tobacco!"

To the extent that pot compromises one's judgment and (in my experience,
anyhow) cuts a few points off of one's IQ, I would say he may be on to
something.

What I was thinking is that the last time I had a puff of a cigarette I
was 8 years old and my uncle** had fun laughing at me when I choked, so
my only experience with smoking is that it chokes me.

We started taking hits off the cigs we were using as punks to
light firecrackers in the 2nd & 3rd grade. Ah, Hawaii, all sorts of
reasons to set off fireworks through the year.

If I learned how to smoke pot, I would know how to smoke without choking
and that major impediment would be gone.

Mostly it is getting your lungs, etc "numb". Much like that
second or third shot of straight whiskey. The first one burns, but
after that "No", hack, wheeze, "I'm " cough, "okay. Boy, that's
smooth."

tschus
pyotr
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Sun, 27 Nov 2016 12:37:00
+0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:

In message , micky
writes:
[]
***I've got a new bluetooth one ear headset that I've tried to make
work. Even though it says in my ear that it's connected and says on the
screen that it's paired and under Sound it's listed as both a mike and a
speaker (twice each for that matter, with slightly different names), I
can't hear anything out of the earpiece and I wanted to test the mike.

I know tbe earpiece basically works because when I'm in Sound / Sounds
and I 'test" various sounds like beep and windows startup I hear them in
my ear, but nothing else.

Not sure which OS you're running, as I'm seeing this in the XP and 10
groups. (I take XP and 7, but I can see the headers.)

I'm running 10, but I sent this thread to XP too so they could rejoice
that they weren't running 10!

On 7, and I suspect 10, you can have different sound hardware set up for
different things - the usual reason being to keep music playing, and
usually system sounds like the beep and startup, coming out of the
speaker, but to route communications (Skype etc.) to a headset. Sounds

This explains one thing I needed an explanation for. In the Sound /
Sounds window (in 10) when the earpiece is turned out there are four
entries for playback** and the speakerwsr had a green/white checkmark
and an earpiece entry had a green/white image of a telephone handset.
So based on what you say, I guess that means that was the one that was
meant to work with Skype, while the speakers were for most other things.

And that would be perfect I think, since I don't want to listen to my
music through my earpiece.

(To some extent the green images could be re-assigned, by clicking
things, but I'm sure the way I have it above was possible.)

That means maybe the problem is in Skype, the only telephone program I
have.

It also means I should test this on XP, where as you say, this division
doesn't exist (which is why I didn't recognize it when I saw it.), and
where in my netbook the built-in speakers are next to worthless. I'll
test in XP as early as tomorrow if possible.


**Speakers;
headphones,(that came with the OS, even though I never used headphones
earpiece, and
earpiece stereo.

Someone gave me a decent explanation how it can have stereo even though
it goes in only one ear, but I dont' remember enough to repeat it.

Okay, tested it today. Couldnt' get XP netbook to pair with my
earpiece, but I did get my cell phone to bluetooth tether to my netbook.
That was easy.

I may try cable tethering and hotspot later, but at least this works

When I turned on the bluetooth for the phone, I think that's when the
wifi on it turned off, but it went back on, so I was getting wifi to the
phone from the DSL router, and then relaying it via bluetooth to the XP
netbook.

I did have to download xptether.dll from the web, or at least they said
I did. It's still in my download directory and I don't know if it will
work from there, so maybe the dll is only needed for cable tethering?

to me like you've got system sounds routed to your bluetooth earpiece
(and possibly not "communications"). There's a similar routing for sound
input, e. g. the microphone.

(AFAIK, XP has no such separation - it just uses one lot of hardware for
input, and one lot [can be the same, e. g. card or headset-pod] for
output, and doesn't use any _other_ hardware present at all. There _may_
be special drivers supplied by some hardware manufacturers that allow
diverse uses.)

I also noted the versions of Skype that are running.

In XP it's version 7.30.0.105 but it's copyright this year and it set up
to use Skpe Wifi

In Win10 it's ver 11.9.261.0 and it does no more.

Yesterday on Win10 desktop, I clicking on Test Audio, several times over
2 hours, did nothing, but today it makes a bunch of different noises.
So now would be the time to get the earpiece to work, but unlike
yesterday, I can't even connect it. Maybe trying to connect it to the
netbook fouled it up for the desktop computer, but all in all, I'm
making progress, so I'm happy. .

Whatever happened to the original, working Skype will remain a secret
for us to wonder....

On 27/11/2016 10:47 AM, micky wrote:
I used Whatsapp once to call Asia. So cool. But the other person has
to have it running on his cell phone. Skype can call landlines.

And for more money you can get a skype phone number so that landlines
can call you and leavfe a message. I assume this is less money to the
callers than other means of making international calls.

However I went into settings today to try test my microphone*** and I
clicked on Test Audio and nothing happened. It used to allow you to
set the level, and there use to be a phone number you could call and
talk to and it would play back what you said so yo'd know if the volume
were right. None of that was there afaict.

***I've got a new bluetooth one ear headset that I've tried to make
work. Even though it says in my ear that it's connected and says on the
screen that it's paired and under Sound it's listed as both a mike and a
speaker (twice each for that matter, with slightly different names), I
can't hear anything out of the earpiece and I wanted to test the mike.

I know tbe earpiece basically works because when I'm in Sound / Sounds
and I 'test" various sounds like beep and windows startup I hear them in
my ear, but nothing else.

Il giorno Fri 25 Nov 2016 09:42:48p, *Bill in Co* inviava su
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general il messaggio
news
I seem to recall that if you tried installing an even
older version for less bloat, it forced you to upgrade.

yes, otherwise the system won't work

--
/-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ T /-\
-=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- - -=-
http://www.bb2002.it
............ [ al lavoro ] ...........

Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

Whatever happened to the original, working Skype will remain a secret
for us to wonder....

The important part, is the bit you don't see.

The original Skype was distributed, kinda like a
torrent. This prevents easy tapping of the connections
in a guaranteed way.

Once Microsoft took ownership, they centralized the
data routing. There is no good reason for doing this,
except for the most nefarious purposes. The old scheme
worked just fine (supernodes etc).

I've not seen an analysis of what encryption changes
might have been made to Skype once Microsoft got it.

All this worrying about the GUI, that's not the
important part.

Paul

In microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, on Mon, 28 Nov 2016 23:05:38
-0500, Paul wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

Whatever happened to the original, working Skype will remain a secret
for us to wonder....

The important part, is the bit you don't see.

The original Skype was distributed, kinda like a
torrent. This prevents easy tapping of the connections
in a guaranteed way.

Once Microsoft took ownership, they centralized the
data routing. There is no good reason for doing this,
except for the most nefarious purposes. The old scheme
worked just fine (supernodes etc).

I've not seen an analysis of what encryption changes
might have been made to Skype once Microsoft got it.

All this worrying about the GUI, that's not the
important part.

Paul

Well, everything Paul said was above my head, but I should say that a
few things have made Skype seem better than my first attack on it.
a) I found Light Mode, so I don't feel like it's designed for someone
on LSD or with a motorcycle anymore.
b) The Test Audio which did nothing the first day I found it worked on
the second day -- Unfortunately my new bluetooth earpiece connected the
first day adn showed up in the lists of speakers and microphones, but
the day that the Skype sound was working, it wouldn't connect.
c) I finally found About so I could get the version.
d) they've gotten rid of the service you could call and talk to and it
would play back what you've said. Even on the XP version which
continues to show it I think because it's in my personal list of
contacts (even though I didnt' come up with it. It was there when I
installed Skype) it doesn't work anymore. That was nice but I can live
without it. I can always call my home phone, listen to its message and
leave a message there to check the speaker and mike level.

I hate this new practice of putting the options all over the screen. It
worked better when there is a row of drop-down menus at the top.