Coming back

I managed to close two projects last monday, successfully deploying a new release of a Notes based manual (remember the 15'000 links that needed to be changed) and the productive release of a relational database (with a Notes backed - no, don’t ask) on a corporate intranet. Almost everything went smooth, I have two rather satisfied clients, the two databases link together as they should - life is good!

I have some more time to play around, thinking about what to do next. I’m juggling with a couple of ideas, there are some really interesting things that seem to develop - it’s going to be interesting times ahead.

I’ve been playing some more with Skype and have some mixed results to tell:

• Even though it says so in the FAQs, Skype does not work well (i.e. at all) over a 56k Modem line. The sound is totally garbled, broken up, fragments of the voice can be heard, but no conversation is possible. Skype needs broadband.
• Not all laptop mics are created equal. The mic on my Dell Inspiron seems to be great. The one on Myriams Sony Vayo is utter crap - I could hear her faintly, faintly
• Skype plans on charging for the service (which is not really unexpected I guess). It’s going to be interesting to see, if they reach critical mass and if they can survive the move to a paid service. I guess it depends on if you can save money with it. Phone costs have come down a lot over the last couple of years, and the biggest dent in my phone bill is made by calls to mobile phones - I’m not sure how much Skype is going to save me… Let’s see