cat >/dev/null_

While the headline speaks for itself (here are the relevant release notes), it’s no big deal for me, since I make very little use of Skype.

There are times when I can’t avoid using it, though. Most people don’t value their freedom enough to take the most basic action or turn around the slightest annoyance, and I can’t afford not to care about all of them (though heaven knows I’m tempted).

That’s how I discovered that Skype had this very annoying habit of fiddling with the sound hardware on my notebook, randomly toggling the “capture” status and actually muting my mic during a call. After several experiments, a lot of repetitions and a whole lot of cursewords (only some of which have been heard by my counterparts, good for me), I’d come to the conclusion that it had something to do with the sound level, but couldn’t completely avoid this behaviour, no matter how low I kept my mic level or the tone of my voice.

Well, maybe the problem has been solved. This new release has a promising option switch, Allow Skype to automatically adjust my mixer levels:

to which I reply: hell no!!!

After literally months of whispering, I can’t wait to shout into someone else’s ears! Not quite enough punishment for using a closed-source, closed-protocol VoIP application, but still better than none.

Oh, almost slipped my mind: still no SMS.