I’m a self-confessed Sudoku addict. I like regular Sudoku, Samurai Sudoku and even hexadecimal Sudoku. I do Sudoku in books, newspapers, and (until very recently) on-line. I find it relaxing, entertaining and mentally stimulating.

Hence my horror last week, when in a personal vendetta launched wholly at me and intended to achieve nothing other than leave me in crumpled, listless, lifeless state on the floor of the computer room, grubby Zynga Games shut down their massively popular Challenge Sudoku game on Facebook. At the time this digital atrocity was committed, nearly 20,000 fans were friends of the game and Challenge Sudoku had received a rating of 3.9 stars out of 5 stars, based on 1,468 reviews.

Here’s the heart-wrenching message which greeted me when I logged on, in order to finish a 5-round “harder” marathon against my Facebook arch-nemesis, a game which I can only assume will now remain unfinished until the end of time itself:

Needless to say – but I’ll say it anyway – “important” games like Farmville, CafeWorld and Mafia Wars are still going strong.

Despondent, heart-broken, despised and rejected, I logged off Facebook, shut down the computer and wept quietly for some hours. I then started driving around aimlessly, in an effort to think clearly. I found myself at mum & dad’s, where I stopped seeking consolation and a mug of International Rust.

I confided in my mother, explaining  my Sudoku dilemma.

Mum said, “Well, there’s always the games you used to play in the garage. Let’s have a look.”

Curious, I followed my mother into the garage, where every single game, toy, camping tool, school book and scouting provision from my childhood was safely stored, and will also possibly (and coincidentally) be stored until the end of time itself.

Would you believe, in next to no time, my mother was able to produce 1 x original, genuine, 30-year-old Intellivision games console??!?!?

Woo hooo!! The Intellivision was manufactured in the late-1970s by Mattel, and was a state-of-the-art machine in its day. My family spent thousands of hours in front of this bleeding-edge games console as we attacked aliens from outer space, negotiated Pitfall Harry over alligators and swamps, and even dodged dangerous barrels of burning oil in Donkey Kong.

The Intellivision is a cartridge machine and mum found a big bag of game cartridges too. I raced home and plugged everything in. No fancy HDMI output on this little sucker: the Intellivision was equipped with an RF modulator. Kids, this means you switch the television to channel 0 or channel 1, and plug a coaxial cable between the system and the antenna socket on your TV.

I was concerned that the Intellivision wouldn’t work after all these years, and I was especially concerned that the magnetic media on the games cartridges would have long since become corrupt or erased completely.

I was, however, excitedly surprised to find that most cartridges still actually worked, after at least 30 years of use and abuse, and storage in a high-humidity garage.

Here are some exciting images from the next few hours of my life, showing-off the Intellivision’s magnificent 159 x 192 aspect ratio and 16-colour graphics palette:

…and last, but certainly not least:

Other exciting titles include Happy Trails, Utopia, Star Strike, Auto Racing, Baseball and Thunder Castle.

And the GREAT thing I’m discovering about the Intellivision, 30 years on, is that no-one in the world knows who I am – or anything about me – when I’m playing a game; AND there’s not one single privacy setting which can mean the difference between access to the game itself and criminally-motivated identity fraud.

I’m yet to find a Sudoku cartridge, but for now, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve learned to deal with my Zynga pain. I’m too busy shooting demons and jumping oil barrels.

Long live Mattel!

facebook · games · intellivision · mattel · retro · sudoku

I had a realization this week. I think I might be a “CLI snob”.

Every day I triage email; I key-ahead to delete voicemail without listening; and I multi-select text messages and hit “delete” without reading them.

Now this brutal yet effective time-management technique has started to influence the way I handle incoming phone calls. No Caller ID? No answer. Sorry.

Working in the I.T. industry fifteen years ago, the on-call techo from my department would start a mail client called “cc:Mail” twice daily, and connect to a Netware mail server. We’d check, optimistically (and naively optimistically in hindsight), to see if anyone had sent us any mail.

Nowadays, we’re bombarded with electronic messaging in every form, every minute of the day; especially I.T. people, who often receive automated alerts from monitoring systems and server scripts. And we’re expected to be available 24 x 7!

So this is what ends-up happening, and I’m sure I’m not the Lone Ranger here. I receive roughly 100 to 200 email messages daily, to my home and work accounts. I ‘triage’ these as they arrive, moving them into folders or just deleting them without reading. Some readers might find this to be normal practice, others might be appalled. If it took me just 30 seconds to open and read each of these messages I’d be spending an hour, maybe an hour and a half, each day just opening and reading emails. Not actually actioning them or doing anything productive, just opening and reading.

To manage time effectively you need to identify what’s relevant to you fast, and everything else can go on the back-burner.

If I’m in a meeting, and I have three missed calls from colleagues, and then three “missed call” text messages from voicemail, I’m not actually going to read any of those texts, or dial-in to voicemail and listen to people saying “Hi, ahhhh… looks like you’re busy… okay then, catchya later.” Delete, delete, delete. It’s what type-ahead was made for. I’m better-off ringing them back, or walking through the cube farm and saying, “Hey, sorry I missed your call, what’s up?”

Lately I’ve been ignoring calls from “private” numbers. Not because I don’t love antagonizing telemarketers, but rather, I’ve got a finite amount of time to get work done, and the telephone is a big distraction. At least if I know who’s calling, I can make an assessment as to the relevance of that call before I answer it.

If I “bounce” a call to voicemail, it’s for a good reason: not necessarily because the call is unwelcome, but that the interruption is unwelcome.

Similarly, if I call someone and I get “bounced” to voicemail (and yes, I do send my number on outgoing calls,) then I know the person at the other end is probably in the same position.

Someone called me a “CLI snob” the other day, because I bounced a private number to voicemail. Maybe I am, but for good reason. Time equals money. Show me some courtesy by identifying yourself in outgoing calls, and I’ll reciprocate by answering or returning the call when I can, and when I’m in a position to give you my undivided attention.

The telephone, like email, Twitter, voicemail, faxmail, text messages and everything else, is a communication tool for my convenience. It shouldn’t be a tool for someone else’s convenience to the detriment of my productivity. If it is, what’s the point in having it?

Oh, the private number caller didn’t leave a message either, by the way. I wondered, for a brief second, who it  might have been.

But only just for a second.

ANI · Caller ID · CLI · email · faxmail · productivity · SMS · text message · time management · Twitter · voicemail

Hi all,

This is just a simple house-keeping post.

Today I deleted over 1000 WordPress user accounts on The Surgery.

Chances are, if your username was “buy_viagra”, “animesex” or “fdksjahgiliegdlzzq” then your account has been deleted.

If I deleted any legitimate accounts, then I apologise a thousand times over. Please re-register with my eternal gratitude.

No tags

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to cable a network socket to the lounge room, and a network socket to the bedroom.

This would enable me, in theory, to stream audio and video from my network to the television and sound system in my living room; and to stream audio and video from my network to the television in the master bedroom.

Why not just use wireless?

I’ve been using WiFi to the lounge room Media Centre for some time (well, years) now. It works adequately. But wireless technology is designed for portable devices, and in the case where I’ve got a Media Centre PC which never moves, the better option from a technical standpoint is to connect to the network using a wired network port. A fixed network connection is faster than wireless, more reliable, and my Media Centre won’t be competing with other wireless devices for bandwidth, using the same hotspot ‘legitimately’ (e.g. net books, smart phones etc.).

Conspiracy theorists that obsess about security will also agree that a wired network connection is a better option than wireless. I, however, do not obsess about such things. Honestly.

Yesterday I got out the fashionable white overalls, retrieved my toolbox from a bygone era and proceeded to cable new network points to the lounge room and the master bedroom. This involved much swearing, grunting, bashing-of-head-against-low-floorboards and grazed elbows, but I got there eventually.

In Australia, make sure any infrastructure cabling, at work or at home, is undertaken by a licensed cabler.  Like me.

Lounge Room – wired for internets!

I plugged the Media Centre into its new network port, and was pleased to see a noticeable improvement in network speed. I’ll keep using the PC as a Media Centre in the lounge room. It makes a lot of sense to me to have a networked PC connected to your television and sound system.

The Bedroom Solution

- or -

“How to browse internets and network file shares in your bedroom without a computer”

A PC in the bedroom, however, is a bit excessive (IMHO). So what’s the best way to access content on the network and stream it to the television?

I had my eye on a fashionable media streamer from Western Digital which Andrew spoke about on Tech Talk Radio in November. After seeing a demonstration, viewing a Blu-Ray rip over Andrew’s network in his lounge room, I was sold. The quality was great.

There are three versions of these little boxes, and I bought the most expensive one, the WD TV Live, which supports networking. This set me back $198 from JB Hi Fi.

The WD TV Live is a small unassuming box which provides an interface between your television and your computer network, with a nifty little remote control (yes, batteries are included!). All the WD TV Live needs is power and a nearby network connection, which I now have, thanks to yesterday’s wrangling.

The WD TV Live outputs to composite or component video (cables supplied) or HDMI (cable not supplied), in full HD 1080P video. When it powers-up, the WD TV Live finds shares on your computer network and lets you watch video and listen to music. It also has 2 x USB ports so you can connect external drives, memory sticks and the like.

To get it going, all I needed to do was connect HDMI to my television, connect the blue network cable and plug-in the power. The WD TV Live did everything else, and the default settings are very usable. It found my network’s DHCP server, assigned itself an IP address, found my network shares and just started working.

Format Support

According to the documentation, supported video formats include AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG 1, 2 & 4, WMV9 & VC-1), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (H.264, X.264, AVC, MPEG 1, 2 & 4, WMV9 & VC-1), TS / TP / M2T (MPEG 1, 2 & 4, AVC & VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4 & H.264), M2TS & WMV9.

Supported image formats include JPEG, GIF, TIFF, BMP & PNG.

Supported audio formats include MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital & DTS.

The WD TV Live also supports common playlist and subtitle formats, and it’s got the DLNA stamp of approval.

Andrew says he’s had huge success with MKV video formats, in terms of quality.

User Interface

Nice.  Fast and smooth.

There’s also a nice interface which streams content directly from Google’s video-sharing website YouTube, popular photo-sharing site Flickr and Live 365 internet radio. You can login to YouTube if you have an existing account.

My only gripe is the on-screen keyboard, which is clunky and frustrating. You’re driving it with the up/down/left/right arrows on the remote control, so I’m not really sure how Western Digital could improve on this. You only need to use the on-screen keyboard if you’re entering custom network settings, or user names and passwords for network shares and such things. Fortunately the WD TV Live remembers these settings, so you rarely need to use the on-screen keyboard.

Problems with HomeGroup Networking

Tech Talk’s Graeme Callaghan also purchased one of these little boxes some weeks ago. He told me that the only difficulties he has experienced have been with Windows 7 “HomeGroup” networking, which apparently does strange things, e.g. causing network shares to disappear, reappear then disappear again. Graeme said that after he disabled HomeGroup networking, in favour of traditional Windows workgroups, everything worked consistently and well. I’m sharing content off a Windows 7 Professional machine in traditional ‘workgroups’ mode and everything with the WD TV Live has been smooth-sailing.

The Verdict

Good.

Easy to set up; reliable; intuitive user interface; excellent playback quality. High WAF*. This is a media streamer which fills a fundamental hole in the digital lounge room.

Or, in this case, Dr Ron’s Digital Bedroom.

* Wife Acceptability Factor

Digital Living Network Alliance · digital lounge room · DLNA · HomeGroup · media streamer · Tech Talk Radio · video streamer · video streaming · WD TV Live · Western Digital

Woooaah … truckloads.

There are 1001 blog-worthy things to blog in my blog about.

Sadly, time (lusty and blithe) is at his apogee.

In brief, I have:

• Had a shave, since the last blog post;
• Upgraded The Surgery WordPress blog from 2.8.3 to 2.9;
• Moved WordPress blog from Fedora 9 machine with crappy dynamic IP address (it was killing me) to shiny Fedora 11 machine with static IP address;
• Marveled at my ability to upgrade WordPress, SQL databases and move them across Linux machines, AND make grown-up changes to DNS zone files – am surely a guru of such things now and legend in my own lunchbox;
• Undertaken 2 of 8 Tech Talk Radio Summer Series productions, time-consuming but rewarding;
• Upgraded the HTC Dream / Google phone to the next Android operating system, very successful;
• Teetered on the brink of e-mail bankruptcy;
• Ordered a new PC for Christmas;
• Ventured inside an Apple Store for the very first time, and escaped by making only a minor purchase (a new iPod Touch); and
• Just today, assisted Mrs Dr Ron in restoring her iTunes library, after she deleted all the music files from her PC’s hard disk  - successfully achieved restoration by using a third-party app called iRip which we’ve spoken about on Tech Talk in the past (thanks JD, saviour of Dr Ron’s marriage).

I have also Tweeted mercilessly about our well-intentioned (yet incompetent, foolish and mis-informed) Senator for Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy.  In case you hadn’t caught up with the news (which the good Senator saved until after the last live episode of Tech Talk for 2009), Australia will be ranked highly with the United Arab Emirates, Iran and China in its foolish deployment of an ISP-based Net Filter.

Adam Turner has had a lot to say about this, and made a clever analogy with a different type of infrastructure.  His blog posts here and here in The Age last week should be mandatory reading.

I’ll blog in more detail about these and other things soon.

I hope you have a great Chrissy and a safe and prosperous New Year.

#nocleanfeed · adam turner · andorid · apple · apple store · blog · fedora · Google Phone · HTC Dream · ipod touch · irip · linux · net filter · news · stephen conroy · tech talk · Tech Talk Radio · the age · the age tech · updates · what's happening · wordpress

It doesn’t get funnier than this.

awkward moments · funny · inspirational posters · Social Networking

Hahaha … these are fantastic!

awkward moments · facebook · funny · Social Networking · status updates

Fairfax Digital in its “Digital Life” column last week reported that, on the 9th of November this year, recommendations made in the Australian Road Rule 8th Amendment Package will be introduced into legislation in Victoria.

This package is an updated set of road and traffic laws which were approved by all state and territory Road Ministers in February.

The Amendment Package says that “the proposed amendments are required to make the Australian Road Rules more succinct and contemporary”, thereby contributing to the safety of road users and the efficient movement of traffic.

Unfortunately, Mr Stephen Hutcheon wrote an article for Digital Life which was published in the SMH, the Brisbane Times,  WA Today et cetera, with an alarming headline:

“Sat nav apps could be heading for a dead end“;

with a page title which read:

“New Road Rules Threaten Phone GPS”.

A report by the ABC was more objective and less sensational.

I’m pleased to report that the Fairfax headlines are misleading and incorrect.

Existing Legislation

The current Road Rule 300(1) prohibits drivers from using a hand-held mobile phone while driving.  It’s as simple as that.  If you are driving, and using, a mobile phone which is held in your hand, you are committing an offence.

This section says:

The driver of a vehicle (except an emergency vehicle or police vehicle) must not use a hand-held mobile phone while the vehicle is moving, or is stationary but not parked, unless the driver is exempt from this rule under subrule (3).

Subrule (3) makes provision for drivers to be issued formal exemptions by VicRoads.

This road rule means, for example:

• if you’re holding a phone to your ear, while driving a car, you’re committing an offence;
• if you’re holding a phone on “loudspeaker” while driving, you’re committing an offence;
• if you’re holding a phone and texting while driving, you’re committing an offence;
• if you’re holding a phone and checking your GPS location in Google Latitude while driving, you’re committing an offence; and/or
• if you’re holding a phone and taking a photograph out the front windscreen while driving, you’re committing an offence.

Also:

• you can legally use a phone while driving, if the phone’s in a hands-free car-kit, and not being held in your hand;
• you can legally use a phone while driving, if the phone’s on the seat beside you, connected via Bluetooth to a hands-free headset (this will change soon, requiring drivers to have phones secured in a commercially manufactured phone holder or kit); and
• you can legally use a phone, holding it to your ear, if you’re legally stopped on the side of the road and the engine is switched off – i.e. you are no longer a driver and have no intention of driving until such time that your phone call is finished.

What the new Amendment Package seeks to do is clarify the existing rules with respect to modern technology contained within mobile devices, including but not limited to GPS functions.

The new Amendment Package also addresses concerns that GPS devices (not telephones) could be held in a driver’s hand while the driver is driving, while the rules relating to mobile phones did not allow a driver to have a mobile phone in his or her hand.

Road Rule 299 (1) says:

A driver must not drive a motor vehicle that has a television receiver or visual display unit in or on the vehicle operating while the vehicle is moving, or is stationary but not parked, if any part of the image on the screen—

(a) is visible to the driver from the normal driving position; or

(b) is likely to distract another driver;

…while section (2) stipulates that the rule does not apply if the visual display unit is a driver’s aid, specifically including navigational equipment.

The new rules will provide consistency in that a GPS must be an integrated part of the vehicle, or secured in a mounting affixed to the vehicle.

Proposed Amendments

Television receivers and visual display units in motor vehicles: Rule 299 will be modified to ensure that any GPS device can only be used if it is in a fixed mounting.

This amendment will provide consistency with rule 300.

Use of mobile phones: Rule 300 will be modified to ensure the original intent of the rule is clarified; a driver is not permitted to use a mobile phone held in any way by the driver, but is permitted to use a phone in a fixed cradle.

Impact on Mobile Phone, GPS & Smart Phone Users

In the interests of everyone’s road safety, I don’t think these changes are a big ask.

Importantly, and contrary to reports in the mainstream media, the new road rules will not threaten phone GPS functions, standalone GPS functions or the ability to use mobile telephones while driving.

The new rules won’t “kill the burgeoning market in apps and services that enable smartphones to be used as satellite navigation systems”.

The new rules will simply clarify what is and isn’t permissible with new technology that’s emerged since the last time the regulations were reviewed.

If you’ve got an iPhone, and use it for GPS navigation while driving, drop it in a cradle.  Simple.  There are hundreds out there and they cost next-to-nothing.

That is, they certainly cost a lot less than a $238 fine.

Sources:

• The Victorian Government Gazette P2 – Road Rules Victoria
• Sydney Morning Herald: Sat Nav Apps Heading for a Dead End
• ABC News: New road rules on mobiles, GPS
• National Transport Commission: Australian Road Rules 8th Amendment Package

gps · mobile phone · mobile phones · mobiles · road rules · road rules victoria · sat nav · satnav

For many months I’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of Google’s next version of the Android operating system – code-named Cupcake.

I was excited this morning when I turned on the handset, to be greeted with a simple upgrade message:

“Android OS 1.5 (Cupcake release).  This is an update for your HTC Dream.  Enjoy several new features such as on-screen soft keyboard, video recording, faster browser and more.”

Okay okay, you don’t need to prompt me twice.  Of course I did what every other self-respecting Google-phone owner would do: I tapped ’Upgrade’ with gay abandon.

In just a few moments I was sucking-down 44 megs of the best, all via the ‘3′ data network.

The installer prompted me to restart the phone twice, and within a few minutes I was running Android OS 1.5 on my HTC Dream.

What’s new?

There are lots of User Interface (UI) improvements.  In the ‘locked’ screen, the network type (3G or Roaming) is displayed, along with the carrier you’re connected to, and the date and time.  Also the phone’s wallpaper is displayed under the lock message which looks nice, instead of just a black screen.

Importantly, all my applications were still installed and all of my user data and settings were left intact. Good work Google.

On-screen keyboard. This is great, and long overdue.  Just tap wherever data-entry is required, and an on-screen soft keyboard appears, much like the Apple iPhone interface.  Press the hard back / return key to hide the on-screen keyboard.  It looks small, but seems to be quite accurate.  There’s also a predictive spelling option which works well.

Video recorder. At last!  A new application called ‘Camcorder’ lets you record audio and video.  There’s a setting for high-quality (to write to the SD card) and low-quality (for quick snippets intended for MMS’ing).

Accelerometer. The in-built acceleromter was never used in first incarnations of Google’s Android.  Now there’s a setting which automatically switches between landscape and portrait modes depending on the angle of the dangle.

Other tweaks and improvements.

Contacts. The Call Log, Contacts and Favourites menus are more polished.  Contacts’ image thumbnails appear in your favourites, which is nice.

There are also new menu options to edit sync groups, and import contacts from your SIM card.

Calendar. More UI changes: nice, more polished.

Browser. Again, more UI changes.  Looks good and loads everything a bit faster.

Battery Life. The much-bemoaned appalling battery life of the HTC Dream is said to be addressed in this release of Android.  All I can say, after one day of experimenting, is watch this space!!  The thing hasn’t died on me yet, but I’ve only made half-a-dozen calls today and haven’t given the Bluetooth or wireless features a good hammering.

Conclusion?

In my “HTC Dream – first impressions” post in March this year, I listed several things which irked me:

Battery Life – see above.  Stay tuned.

FM Radio – well that’s not going to happen in a software patch, is it?  Actually I’ve been using a 3rd-party app called StreamFurious to listen to on-line radio stations.  It works really well, and even has a bandwidth counter which runs in the foreground, so you’re always aware of the application’s ‘bandwidth footprint’.

Camera – video now supported, see above.  The lag’s still there.

Microsoft Integration, File Browsing and Notepad - No, no and no.

Google Latitude – fixed in a ‘point release’ about two months back: see this post for details.

All in all, I’d say that Cupcake is a good effort, and worth the upgrade.  The ability to record video, and tap an on-screen keyboard will be warmly welcomed.  Support for the in-built accelerometer is also a nice improvement.

Google, keep the updates coming.  Apple, pay attention to your competitors, I don’t think they’re that far behind.

android · android os 1.5 · Google Phone · HTC Dream · t-mobile g1

Google Latitude

In March I blogged about my new HTC Google Phone and was disappointed, at the time, that Latitude wasn’t supported in Google Maps.

Low and behold, the Google Maps on my HTC Dream updated itself a few weeks ago.  Imagine my surprise when I saw a new “Latitude” button in Google Maps!  Hurrah!

I already had Latitude set up through a conventional web browser.  The HTC Dream detected my Google account details and settings, and I could see the location of all my “friends” straight away.  Awesome!  You can set Latitude to manually or automatically update your location, based on GPS latitude/longitude or wireless and telephone networks.  It seems to work well.

Skype Lite Beta

The other exciting development is the addition of Skype Lite Beta to the Australian Android Market.

Users of Android-powered devices can download and install applications from the online Android Market, but Skype is a new addition in Australia and has only just made itself available for download in the last week or so.

I was very excited when Skype Lite Beta finally appeared in my Android Market search results. I was pleased by the quick download and installation; a bit confused that it needed my mobile telephone number at the login screen; but impressed that all my contacts were instantly viewable with my pre-existing Skype account details, and that I could see all my contacts’ statuses (online, offline, busy and so on).

BUT when I made a call to a logged-on Skype contact (not using “Skype Out”), the HTC Dream set up a phone call to a Sydney number.  Huh?  Then I heard ‘ring ring’ and the call was answered at the other end (by my Skype contact, on a Skype client, on her PC in West Melbourne).

We chatted for some time, and the quality was good, but I was a bit confused that my HTC Dream had made a phone call to some type of gateway.  Must be a default setting, I thought, something I can easily change.

But this seems to be by design, and it’s not possible to change.  Read the not-so-fine-print on Skype’s webpage:

“With Skype on your mobile, you’ll always know when your friends are online and you can call them for the cost of a local call (or use your inclusive minutes from your mobile plan).”

And this:

“You can call friends and family from the bus or while you’re sipping a latte in your favorite coffee shop – wherever they are in the world. Best of all, your phone will work as normal – no WiFi or 3G connection needed – and you won’t need to change operator.”

Huh?!?!!  If I’m connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, or an HSDPA telephone network, why can’t I use good old-fashioned “voice-over-IP” Skype to talk to my contacts, and chew-up some of that 3GB on my new data plan?

Then I realised … okay … that’s why Skype Lite Beta needs your mobile telephone number at the login screen.  When the Skype client sets-up a call to the Skype gateway (which BTW is a Sydney indial range, 02 8005 89xx), the Skype server marries your incoming call with your login, and connects your circuit-switched call on the phone network to an outbound Skype call from the Skype data centre.

It also explains how those mysterious “Skype minutes” work on your mobile phone plan.  It’s got nothing to do with bandwidth used for voice traffic, and everything to do with call minutes to and from your local Skype gateway.

Now I’ve looked through all the settings and configuration screens, and I can’t find anything that lets you choose packet-switched calls instead of circuit-switched calls.  Surely the software supports native Skype VoIP?  Well, actually we know that it does, because handsets like these are “WiFi only”.  They’re not mobile phones and can’t “dial-up” a gateway.

The interface is great, call quality is good and the client seems to work quite well.  I just can’t understand why I can’t choose to use packet-switched VoIP Skype, as opposed to dial-up Skype.

Maybe it’s just me. I do get pedantic about these things sometimes.  More testing to be done and more updates soon.

Australian Android Market · Google Android · Google Latitude · Google Phone · HTC Dream · Latitude · skype · Skype Lite Beta