Month: June 2008

There is a rather new service in town – Talkster. The idea behind is to call a friend abroad and having a local number assigned. You stay in the line while your friend calls you back to your local assigned phone number. So you pay nothing and your friend saves the rates of expensive long distance ones!

Since a week ago they even support Skype now including Skype’s Unlimited Call Plans.

This is a really neat service (which I don’t however need at the moment so no test by me took place).

There is a neat video explaining it: watch.

Technorati Tags: Skype, Talkster
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The ICQ Team has released a beta of the new ICQ2Go! version.

This version is of course still in beta and ready for your testing!

Read the announcement:

“ICQ2Go!
11.06.08 09:41
ICQ team invites you to share your thoughts and opinions about ICQ2Go new Beta version.

Please note that starting July 1. the Java version will not be available.

Yours,
ICQ Team.”

The latest version imitates the 2-tab-based swtich of Skype 4.0.

Now the question is who copied from whom. Skype from ICQ or ICQ from Skype? At least I can say it is scary to see 2 major products like Skype and ICQ going the same way or making user interfaces horrible!!!!!!! :'( very sad!

As always you can report bugs and suggest improvements by using a bug reporting form however this time it is hosted on AOL not ICQ.

Also you can see the System requirements here and post your feedback on a dedicated forum.

Technorati Tags: ICQ, skin
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Some users of ICQ 6 will find a new ICQ User to his contact list. It is ICQ System – #12111.

The reasons for this step they explain in an announcement:

“Latest Announcements

A Message for ICQ Users
a new user from ICQ on your contact list.
As part of the process of upgrading ICQ users to our newest, most advanced version, ICQ6, we have added a new user name to your contact list ”ICQ System”. The newly added user is intended to improve ICQ’s line of communication with our users and assure you continue to enjoy talking to everybody, everywhere.”

It doesn’t work for everybody. Despite me having ICQ6, I haven’t had the contact on my list, so I have added him manually! 🙂

Let’s see what advantages this user will bring to us!

Technorati Tags: ICQ, ICQ6
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Skype has released today Skype 4.0 Beta now which is scary. I mean the GUI is, the new way of Skypeing is one I really do not like.

I just do not like it. It is very uncompfortable to use and a real hassle.

And too much features missing to make it enjoyable for me. well, maybe you will like it anyway. I find the huge avatar pics amazing! They are HUGE! !!!!And that you see country and time of your contact is great!

Let me know what you think in the comments! Thanks!

My friend Jean also posted on this – read it! it’s very true! Great to have a supporter in the blogpsphere 🙂

#Technorati Tags: Skype, 4.0
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The Share Skype Blog writes about the fact that they have not introduced a Skype Advice & Services Directory for their service Skype Prime.

Interesting are also some services like English lessons by Skype however I doubt their teaching methods which is based on the Callan method which is a very questionable method of teaching English!

This is for various reasons:

1) Their homepage itself reads:

“Callan Teachers only need to be trained in the method and do not need an extensive knowledge of grammar, teaching techniques or a TEFL qualification as the method provides for these elements of learning in planned out textbooks.“

Which means: Keep the teacher stupid to make the students intelligent (sorry, stupid phrase =) ). Well, infact, the teacher needs also (almost) no education at all!

2) Quoting Wikipedia:

““It is the express will of Robin Callan that the method remain unchanged. This means that regardless of the merits of the methodology, the materials are very dated and do not take advantage of modern developments in descriptive grammar. This means that some of the utterances produced are quite unnatural; eg Callan presents sentences such as “I’ve a ” (in place of “I’ve got/I have”) and “I haven’t a ” (in place of “I don’t have/I haven’t got a “).”“

Now I understand why many Polish and Brazilian people complain that their method of learning English is crappy (e.g. no grammar lessons):

“The Callan Method is especially popular in Poland and Brazil“

My sincere respect to all from those places I have met which spoke and wrote very fluent!

The language school in question is probably already closed anyway:

“The Postfix program

: host mx.poczta.onet.pl[213.180.130.86] said: 501 5.1.3
Odbiorca nie istnieje / Reciver
not exists (in reply to RCPT TO command)“

If you want to see a photo of that method’s inventor, have a look here. There is also yet another video showing the method at an even faster speed and less learning potential! (The English school’s examples linked aboce at least had some noticeable support level). If I had English lessons at school like that I would have ran away in panic screaming! 😀 “Is this a car?” – “Yes, it’s a car” 😀

Technorati Tags: Skype, SkypePrime
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The Opera 9.5 final browser got released but my personal suggestion is: Do not install it! Many bugs reported like Wand issues, crashes, a memory leak, sidepanel errors, printing issues, etc.

If you are happy with Opera so far better stick with the previous final.

It’s a shame that everybody blidnly jumps on the new final totally ignoring how bad bad it is. so does Opera@USB.

I regret having ever switched to Kestrel.

I have sent an email to Opera before writing this post so they know how I feel about their latest “grand work piece”.

Technorati Tags: Opera, 9.5
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This is too funny! 😛

Technorati Tags: video, Star Wars
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Since years people ask me why I do not use my laptop – so I always had to tell I have not any just because I want to avoid sitting in front of computers a bit too much. So I have found my solution to the problem: Simply by a laptop that needs a receptacle and has no internal battery pack so you cannot use it on the balcony or n the go!

So my choice which should arrive here anytime is this:

Commodore 64 SX. It will be the NTSC model! I hope it will give me a lot of fun! I never played Summer Games and Test Drive II in their original speed! 🙂

photo from Wikipedia article linked above

Technorati Tags: Laptop, SX64
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I found recently this very interesting video of Amy Walker speaking the same sentence in 21 languages! Very interesting, and the accents are real! I have heard all of them already speaking to people from all over the world (I however hope my accent isn’t as strong as demonstrated in the video :P).

I wonder wether the disturbance and annoying being in the last half is played or real 🙂

There is also another video posted as a feedback to her posted by Miss Cupcake, but it loses a bit of its magic due to the fake name used.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: English, video
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