In love, with Pamela
But not so much with Skype Beta, except for having set me up with Pamela. Yes, Skype Beta is really annoying in many ways, so I went back to the Skype site so see if they had any updates.
And at the very bottom of the screen, I saw a link to Pamela, advertising call recording. The link you are hooked up with from the Skype screen is to a 30-day trial of the Professional version, and it takes a little digging to find the cost if you do find yourself enamored—it’s only $20.
So I tested it and smooth sailing. Recently, I had been looking for a solution for how a professor could have students record an Internet call to turn in as a class assignment. Skype had to be immediately ruled out, because there was no easy way to have students record. This is pretty cool, and it puts it back in the running, though the seamless call recording feature of gizmo makes that a more viable candidate. (However, I have had problems connecting to gizmo at all at home, possibly due to router settings and suggested fixes from tech support haven’t helped; and at work, where over the school LAN I could connect to someone else, but we couldn’t hear each other).
We also tested ivisit, which I think is awful in terms of interface and charges a subscription fee, I believe, to talk to more than one person at a time. It does offer video (though Skype apparently has gone there with 2.0), but we had the same problem at work that we had experienced with gizmo—something about the LAN settings prevented from hearing anything, although we were connected. In contrast, I have never heard of anyone having any issues with Skype.
So, back to Pamela– call recording, blogging/podcasting– I am optimistic about Skype once again…
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