My daily commute to work is roughly 2,500 miles... so you can just image how much time I spend sitting in traffic!
OK, seriously... I really do work that far from our official HQ, but that's because our entire company is very technology forward. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that we make up the quintessential Virtual Office. One of the key tools that I/we use on a daily basis to talk with co-workers (and friends in general) is Skype.
One of the cool features of Skype is that it lets you start conference calls with up to 9 other people (assuming you have a dual-core CPU and enough band-width). This feature is invaluable to teams like ours that are collaborating from across the country (or world). Another cool feature of Skype is that it allows you to have a Video Call with another Skype user. So when I call up my friend Phil, we can actually see each other on our monitors as we're talking - soooo Jetsons, I know.
Video Phone, Kewl!
Yeah, that's what I thought! So when I went out to purchased a webcam, I picked up the Logitech QuickCam b/c right on the box it said "Works with Skype". And boy did it! In just a few minutes I was up and using Skype and my new camera as a video phone.
Back to Conference Calls
One limitation is that you can only have a video call if you're talking with just one other person - meaning no video conferences. Not yet anyhow.
But one issue that I found was that I was no longer able to host a Skype conference call at all. I would select a couple of users from my Skype Contacts list, and then choose the option to "Invite to Conference." Skype would call all of the contacts I'd selected and the first person would answer. Good. But as soon as the second (or third, fourth, etc...) contact would answer, Skype would automatically put all other users on hold.
WTF?
After many re-installs of various flavors of Skype combined with a lot of Googling, I finally came across the answer. Logitech's QuickCam software wasn't playing nice with Skype!
But it said it would on the box!
Apparently the marketing department wasn't listening to the development groups again... think Dilbert.
In the end, I had to tell Skype to NOT Allow Logitech's QuickCam software to access the Skype API. From Skype, do the following:
- Go to Tools -> Options -> Privacy.
- At the bottom of the Privacy Options screen is a section called Related Tasks, click the Manage other programs' access to Skype.
- Click on the COMMUNICATIONS_HELPER.EXE and then hit the Change button.
- Now select the Do not allow this program to use Skype option and click OK, OK, Save.
Now, go place a conference call to a couple of your buddies, and all should be well!
Many thanks to Marty33 of the Skype forums for the answer. Hopefully his advice and this post will save many people hours and hours of anguish!
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