Preface

My involvement with Skype began in 2004 when, after getting tired of seeing the outrageously high proportion of fixed charges and taxes on my phone bill each and every month, I decided to do something about it. Over the space of a few months, I gradually replaced my old phone system with Skype. In the process, I shaved 82% off my phone bill!

But after a short while, Skype's potential to save lots of money was slowly eclipsed by the realization that Skype could also do far, far more than any existing phone technology, whether making free calls over the Internet to someone on the other side of the planet, having your phone number and calls follow you wherever you go, or being able to send text messages, for free, from a web browsereven with just a formatted URLon a machine without Skype installed and have it delivered to any Skype user, wherever he might be. This is a technology that is limited only by your imagination. As you will discover, you can do things with Skype that you simply cannot do with your existing telephone system or by using other VoIP offerings.

As you get to know Skype, you will become aware that Skype is unlike any telephone system you have known before. And after a short while, like Dorothy in TheWizard of Oz, you might find yourself mouthing the words: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

Skype Hacks is a book that shows you how to save money by using Skype, and how to remove the boundaries imposed by having lived within the confines of your regular phone system for so long, a system that has been in stasis for decadesdumb, lifeless, and unmoving. It is a book that hopes to liberate your imagination and show, in a practical hands-on way, how Skype can do amazing new thingssometimes things that even its creators never envisioned. If after reading this book, you find yourself with the urge to hack around with Skype, the people at O'Reilly and I will have succeeded in our jobsand in the process, hopefully, we will have helped you to save a bundle of money.

Are you ready to journey onward to the "land over the rainbow"? Let's go!