Wednesday, February 2, 2011

How To Use Skype

If someone could teach me (and some of my cohorts) how to appropriately use Skype, it would be much appreciated. We just spent fifteen minutes trying to get four of us to conference in. Since Adam didn't have a mic, he was going to join via chat, while the remaining three (Ray, Kristi, me) would talk.

Here's how it went: Adam could hear me (and Alex having a discussion about taxes), but I couldn't hear him (no mic as mentioned above). Adam could hear Ray.  Kristi was having mic problems and Adam was the only one that could hear her at one point. Great! This skype thing is really working for us...NOT!

Ray had to restart his computer a couple of times. Kristi was a little late in joining, while I was way early. It was probably about 5 minutes into when the call should have started that it was actually started. Since nothing was really working, I started playing around with my settings and thought maybe I needed external speakers. Alex to the rescue! He had a headset that consisted of earphones and a microphone, so I looked like a telemarketer or phone-in customer service rep. Very stylish! But hey, it worked. With this in, I could hear Ray. A small step for some new Skypers.

 the headset (please don't mind my make-up-less face)

Since Ray and I could now chat, Adam would call me and I would put him on speaker and Kristi would call Ray and put her on speaker. BAD IDEA! There was lots of echos, similar to when you stand between two mirrors and it looks like you go on forever. It was like that only with sound. Does that make sense? After 30 seconds of that and realizing it was not going to work, we decided to scrap using skype and just meet first thing tomorrow morning. Whew!

Although it didn't work out, Ray and I were able to video chat with each other after it ended and he got to see little Diego. I hope that made his day!

Happy Skyping! 

--Am

3 comments:

  1. I got skype so I could see the boys in CA. Lesley and Jon tell me they have never been able to make it work. I think I have mine operational--but I've never really had anyone on the other end, so who knows!!
    It could be that it isn't as easy as they make it sound--or you could blame it on the weather!!

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  2. I did eventually get it to work, but it was a chore. And I have to wear that headset, which I'm not a huge fan of! As my friend Adam would say, I can barely spell technology, let alone do anything about it. :)

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  3. Hello, my name is Peggy.

    -Emily

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