Practicalmadness

I finally found and bought the new Linksys CIT200 Skype phone, a cordless handset that connects to any Windows PC and hooks up to Skype’s P2P telephony network to provide cheap calls to any phone in the world, and free calls to any fellow Skype user.

The call quality is decent, about the same as a cell phone. But for me the killer Skype feature is the price: calls to most telephone numbers in the First World are $0.02/minute, prepaid, and calls to other Skype members are always free. You can reload your account online using your credit card or a PayPal account, and every now and then PayPal or Skype will offer free promotional minutes. The ability to receive normal phonecalls (called SkypeIn) costs about $4/month and includes free voicemail.

Unlike other internet phone services like Vonage, Skype calls are routed via other users’ connections (fun fact: the creators of Skype also created KaZaa) and this particular handset requires a PC with the Skype software installed. One can make Skype calls from their computer using a headset or microphone and save the cost of the handset, but that makes it difficult to use Skype to call for pizza while you’re crashed on the couch.

Apple just released a software update for the 5G and Nano iPods that allows you to set a personal volume limit. Smart people have said that limiting one’s headphone listening to no more than 60% volume and no more than 60 minutes per sitting helps prevent your eardrums from being liquefied, but that iPod touch wheel is a slippery bastard. The sixty minute limit is up to you, but at least this will help you help yourself in the volume department.

The Equator CD 400 is a tiny dishwasher about the same size as a large microwave oven, large enough to wash about four place settings’ worth of dishes, glassware and utensils in about 45 minutes.

Griffin has announced the new iTalkPro, a successor to their audio recording iPod accessory now compatible with the 5th generation (video) iPods. The old iPods could record audio with the help of microphone add-ons from Griffin or Belkin, but were limited to 8 kHz, mono WAV files that were only barely usable for voice memos. The new iPods, however, can record at full CD quality. The iTalkPro (which currently has neither a price nor a release date) is the first announced product that enables the new hi-fi recording feature.