Catching Up
Well it's been a while - are you still out there? I've been back from my trip to Madrid for a couple of weeks now. Those two weeks have been spent tinkering with my new PC and my home network. I get completely obsessed - it's terrible really. I spent HOURS moving data, installing software, configuring settings, etc.
Madrid was/is amazing. It's a beautiful city filled with beautiful people, great food, fantastic shopping, breathtaking sites - it lacks for nothing. Today though, I am in Vancouver, here for an ABA TECHSHOW Planning Board meeting that we are holding in conjunction with the Pacific Legal Technology Conference. I'm speaking with Ross Kodner and Nicole Garton-Jones on "The Wired (Small) Law Office."
Between Madrid and Vancouver and being at home - I have really been using the hell out of Skype. I just can't get over how well it works and how free (or cheap) it is. Skype is always free when you are calling another Skype user. Through the end of the year, they are offering free calls to U.S. land lines and cell phones. From Madrid I purchased $10 worth of Skype-Out credits - these allow you to call from one country to another for pennies. Literally. Over my 3 week stay there I must have spent about 7 hours calling back to the U.S. It cost me no more than $4. No joke. If you are calling clients or friends and family and paying too much in traditional long distance fees, you really need to get on with it. Get Skype. Don't be afraid - look, if my Nona can do it, so can you.
On top of being free or cheap - the quality of the calls in incredible. I spent about 3 hours on conference calls with the TECHSHOW Planning board, they couldn't tell I was in another country or on the Internet. And the call NEVER failed, didn't drop once. BUT even better than all that, is the video calling - which is Skype to Skype and free. Before I left, I had set my mom and granny up with a $35 Logitech Quickcam 
It was so good - really great. Of course, my hip 97-year old grandmother tried to play it cool, like she wasn't totally amazed that she could see and hear me so clearly from Spain. When it comes to tech, age just doesn't matter.
