Sunday, October 30, 2011

My First Day on Skype

        For those of you who follow Hiawatha House you will know that Red is somewhat challenged when it comes to all things technological. I have told you that I had a digital watch for twenty five years before I learned to set it. I struggled with my new ipod last year. I don't set the timer on my DVD. Some day I'm going to have to down load a podcast? I missed Sunday Morning today and it was a good show. How am I going to hear it if I don't download a podcast?


       Now some people will be saying, "What in the world is wrong with Red if he can't do these simple technological things." If you look at my birthday post you will get part of the answer.


      Three years ago my brother said I should get Skype. He had all the reasons why it would be great to have Skype. I understood all his reasons. But I still thought about it . For my birthday this year my daughter gave me a webcam. HINT, HINT. So I knew she was getting a webam and wanted to talk to Mom and Dad on Skype. The webcam  had  a disk to download. That went fine. I set up a Skype account. That was pretty hit and miss but I got it done. I've never had my sound working properly on this computer so I wanted to fix that before going on Skype.


     This morning we phoned my daughter for her birthday. Then she said lets try to get on Skype. She added me as a contact as we hadn't done that before. I added her as a contact. She clicked something and there she was . I clicked something and there I was at her place in Chicago. We talked for an an hour and a half. My wife thought it was absolutely fabulous as she was really wowed by speaking and seeing the image at the same time.


     So here I am a veteran of one call on Skype! I have much more to learn but I'm sure I'll get to it. Now I just have to catch up to the guy who told me to get Skype in the first place.

12 comments:

  1. We use three kinds of video imaging: Skype, iChat, and FaceTime. So I know the hard part of getting started, but now a voice only call seems kind of wrong... :-)

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  2. Skype is cool and good for you for taking the plunge with technology. It can be bewildering at the best of times. I've only used Skype a couple of times for fun.. I have no real reason to set it up. Though I should suggest it to my son who lives a few hours away. Thanks for that idea, Red.

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  3. Your ahead of me......but then I don't know of anyone I'd need to talk to on Skype;)

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  4. I think it depends on your reason for calls . Most of my calls are to relatives so it's more like a visit.

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  5. Hilary, my wife thought Skype was more than cool! She likes to visit and visit becomes more realistic with Skype. For example the first thing she said about my daughter was, "Oh you've cut your hair!"

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  6. DJan you're blowing my mind! You're telling me about stuff I've never heard of. Oh well, I know what's coming next then.

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  7. You are getting all wild and crazy Red! My Mom got Skype to talk to two of her Grands when they were overseas..she thought it was way cool too.
    I don't talk on the phone much..I let the machine get it..:)

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  8. Far Side, I really like call display as it helps to sort out the nuisance calls.

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  9. You are not doing bad : I am a year or two behind you in both age and technological awareness.

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  10. You may be a couple of years younger but the tech experience I wouldn't bet on.
    You've got a good hold on telling a good sotry and using pictures. That's the ticket for a successful blog.

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  11. Well everyone seems to be a fan of skype. I don't think skype is something that perfect as we assume it to be. First of all it makes your windows very slow. It captures a huge portion of your internet bandwidth. Video quality is more than poor. People are using skype just because it is free. However, if you pay a few dollars to some other VoIP service provider like vonage, axvoice or anyone else, believe me you will get far better calling facilities.

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  12. Andrew, thanks for being a first time commenter on Hiawatha House. Thanks for the info. For a non techie like me you've given me info that really makes sense.

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