I’ve heard my friends talking about Skype, and I’ve really just blown it off because I never had much of a need for it.  I recently signed up for an account because I needed a cheap way to talk with my wife while on a mission trip to Germany.  Here are some of the things that really turned me on about Skype:

1.  I was able to call home, church, or my wife’s cell for just .02 cents per minute.  Before I left I put $10.00 on my account, and returned with about $7.50.  If my wife was at home, then she’d go to her computer, and we’d switch to her Skype account. That way we could talk for free.

2.  After I had been in Germany for about a week, I had lots of video footage captured.  So while talking with my family, I switched my video input from my Macbook Pro’s built in isight camera to an external firewire input.  Then I put my camera in VTR mode and shuttled through the tape and described what they were looking at in real time.

3.  While editing some of the videos with German nationals, there were three of us sitting around a table, all with our Skype accounts active, and we were able to pass files around to each other so easily.  Much easier, in fact, than using USB flash drives

My wife has been out in Lubbock, Texas a lot lately, taking care of her mother who has brain cancer.  It’s been really great for us to be able to connect.  She can see me, and as soon as we get her webcam for her PC working, it will be both ways.