Tag: Skype

Create an IM Protocol?

August 25, 2009 at 8:40 PM

Recently, I have been thinking about creating my own IM protocol. Mainly due to the fact that I think there should be another alternative in a lightweight client that supports every OS (using Java).

However, I think this wouldn’t be that worth of a write. This is because there are already written alternatives out there. For example, there’s XMPP (or Jabber), Skype, and Google Talk (Jabber). Yet, people do not use these are much. This could possibly be that they are not as popular as AIM or MSN. Also, there is already alternative clients that support multiple protocols, such as Pidgin (no ads), and Disgby.

Of course anyone that uses the official clients can easily modify them. For MSN, there’s A-Patch, Mess.be Patch, and Messenger Plus! Live. I personally use A-Patch (Mess.be never updated to 9.0 so they lost out, which sucks as they used to be my favorite), and Messenger Plus! Live. For AIM, there’s Aim Ad Hack. I personally use this cause not only does it get rid of the ads, it get rid of that garbage the AIM installer likes to put on your computer, such as the AIM Toolbar (ick!)

So would it be worth it to write an IM protocol that does what just about everything that’s already out there? Probably for a learning experience, yeah, but for a wide audience, probably not. People don’t like switching or changing from things they are used to, that’s just how the way we are. Most likely if that user is already on an IM service, they would probably stick to it for the convenience, and we all know how hard it is to get your friends to switch over to another service too (i.e AIM to MSN and vice versa).

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Skype “Unlimited” Plans Are Actually Limited

August 5, 2009 at 11:58 PM

I was looking at Skype‘s Unlimited Calling subscriptions again, as I had one for a month before. Then I read the fair use policy only to find it to be ridiculous.

Calls to phones and mobiles and Skype To Go* calls are included in your subscription subject to a fair usage limit of 10,000 minutes per user per month, with a maximum of 6 hours per day. Also, no more than 50 different numbers in total can be called per day. If your subscription includes more than one country, then this is the total amount of minutes allowed per month on your account, and is not a separate limit for each country.

I understand the 10,000 minutes usage per month cause of how cheap the plans are, but only a maximum of 6 hours and only 50 different numbers each day, what’s up with that. Not only is that the limit per day, users have been saying if you hit the limit (post 1 and 2), you lose the subscription for the rest of the month.

It doesn’t really make any sense why they are called unlimited when they are not, seems misleading. Although I’d probably never hit one of those limits myself, so it’s not that big of a deal. I know one day I might though if I did have the plan continuously and that would be a problem.

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