Free calls in US and Canada

All US and Canadian-based Skype customers can now make free SkypeOut calls to traditional landline and mobile phones in the US and Canada. This offer is valid until the end of 2006 year.

While SkypeOut calls within the US and Canada will now be free, SkypeOut calls to and within all other countries will continue to incur charges. Those charges are unchanged by today’s announcement and remain among the lowest available to consumers.

Skype website

Download the latest Skype 2.0.0.105 (Windows)

IMVITE - Multi-Messenger

The IMVITE multi-messenger is a free application that puts you in control. Users can control who can see their online status and Imvite supports all major platforms: MSN, Yahoo, AOL, ICQ and more. Imvite supports news feeds, Google search and online shopping.

With IMVITE to IMVITE chat, messages are secured with 128 bit encryption, ensuring maximum privacy.

IMVITE features a spam free zone with Free worldwide PC-to-PC calls. With a speaker and a microphone, users can chat with friends and colleagues worldwide free of charge.

The most important features are:

• All-in-one Instant Messenger. Chat with all your contacts from YAHOO, MSN, AOL and ICQ. Chat with your friends on different networks all at once.
• Free Live Video & Audio Chat!
• Personalized RSS News, Encrypted Secure Chat, Share Files, and much more.
• Cash Rebates on all your purchases from over 1,000 stores at the IMVITE Shopping Mall.
• The free version includes all these features.

More details are available here.
To download it, you must register here (free).

Lycos Phone Beta - an amazing offer

Lycos Phone Beta offers the following great features:

- Free US phone number;
- 100 free minutes just to start and then earn free talk time through partner offers;
- Lycos Phone is not just a great phone. Upload your MP3 files and listen to music while you chat. Add a webcam for video calls. Watch movie trailers, music videos, and live TV from Bloomberg, NASA, and more...

Of course features like free pc-to-pc calls, free incoming calls, low rates are available. Also, sign up with your e-mail address and you'll receive free gold membership.

The main window shows rotating ads. However if you use some of the advertised products, you'll receive cash in your Lycos Phone account.

Screenshot of the main window

By signing up you receive $1 and a free US phone number as a gold member. I already received a number and tested it, so this is one of the great features of this service.

Official website

Download

Search for Web's Top Video Content

The Searchforvideo IM service now works not only in AOL IM but also in other major instant messengers - Yahoo IM and MSN. It's really easy to search for video without opening your web browser. Just write "search phrase" and the Searchforvideo buddy will show you a list with the best matches.

Also you can subscribe for alerts or look at the most watched videos by the other users of this service.

For AIM, you just need to add "searchforvideo" to your buddy list, for MSN add "searchforvideo@hotmail.com" to your contacts list and in Yahoo IM - add "searchformedia" to your friends list. That's all. Then just write to the bot - here is a list of the available commands:

• search keyword(s) - Example: search super bowl
• alert on - That way you'll subscribe to receive the Headline video alerts
• alert off - Turns it off
• spy watched - See the most recently watched video clips at searchforvideo
• spy searched - See the most recent searches at searchforvideo
• spy added - See the video clips most recently added to searchforvideo

Recording your voice conversations

With vEmotion you can record all your voice conversations. It is enabled with Skype, other supported IMs include Msn Messenger, AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google talk, Tencent QQ. One can tune up all these big IMs with single installation of the program.

The main features are:

• Set background music for Instant Messenger voice conversations. So as to share music among you and your friends.
• Send voice emotions/sound effects to your friends who take part in a voice conversations. Anything you have inconvenience in expressing it with your mouth or text, you can communicate it by voice emotions.
• Record calls into audio files with perfect quality for future review. And manage/replay the call records easily.
• It supports the most prevalent audio formats, currently including MP3 and WAVE. Supporting for OGG and WMA will be available before long.

Since the beta version was released, the program has been updated several times. Now, the latest version is 2.0.8.99. People do appreciate the vibrant developing team behind the product. It was said that they are still endeavoring to develop new features for coming versions.

The most attractive aspect, I noticed, is that vEmotion is free to use. No expiration limitation was imposed on it, despite some trivial limitations for recorder users. For an average user, these limitations are completely reasonable and acceptable. After all, you can experience all its functionality without paying.

Download

Important Update for Miranda IM Users

There is an important patch for Miranda IM. If you use the ICQ protocol you could lose some messages. The bug is defined as "unknown TLV(19) bug".

To fix this problem, you have to download and replace the file icq.dll in the Miranda folder.

Download icq.dll

It seems that the ICQ protocol has been changed a little bit and that's why only the official ICQ client is working properly. Other clients like Miranda and QIP must be updated. For QIP you just need to download the latest alpha version.