Support Network

Hello,

We would like to inform you about new Skype To Go features that will make it easier for you to stay in touch with family and friends abroad.

Your Access Number

As you may have noticed, you can now call a local Access Number to dial any international number on the go. Here's how it works:

1. To make a long distance call, simply dial this number 949-528-3871
   
   
2. When you're greeted by the voice menu, say hello back, then select option 2.
3. Enter the phone number of the person you'd like to call, starting with the country code (e.g. '001' for the US or '0044' for the UK) followed by the '#' key.

More contacts

You can now add up to 30 contacts in Skype To Go so you can reach even more friends and family abroad by calling a local number.

More registered phones

You can now register up to 20 phones, allowing family members and colleagues to use your Skype To Go account as well. Simply add their number as a registered phone and tell them which Skype To Go number to dial the next time you chat.

Save time and money with the new Skype To Go - and stay in touch with people, wherever they are.

So yesterday we already had one of our Super Users - kicks-mobile - highlighted and I don't want to show a bias towards these great great user group here, but... I think you all agree that we can't end this year without mentioning TheUberOverLord. He alone replied almost 12.000 times since the launch of this community about half a year ago Probably every Windows and video user came across one of his replies.

TheUberOverlord, or Don as his real name goes is with the Skype community since a very long time already back when they were still "the Skype forums". He's also a developer for third-party Skype applications and - quite meaningful therefor - also a Super User on the Skype Developer Community. It's thank to Super Users like him who are sharing their Skype expertise that we have such a vibrant community here where all kind of Skype users, new and long time ones can find answers to their questions.

Now you might wonder where his nickname stems from - It's actually fairly simple: Back in the 1990s Don found a company for designing and marketing CPU load balancing software called "OverLord". And as he lead that company he became "TheUberOverLord"

So on behalf of the community users goes a big "Thank you" to TheUberOverLord for your contributions in 2011. Looking forward to 2012.

All four recipients of our 2011 end of year community awards will receive a pack of Skype goodies (party)

Welcome to today's third recipient of the 2011 end of year community award. Yesterday we saw "The Documentator" awarded with a special user rank for his great contributions. Today I would like to put the spotlight on one of our recent joiners in the Super User ranks who is known on the community by his nickname kicks-mobil.

Besides the way he gives answers - straight, to the point and very actionable - I really like the fact that brought him to this Community: kicks-mobil engages foremost in Skype for Windows, especially on video related questions. He's also particularly caring for the German community.

He shares experiences from a project that he has been conducting for the last five years: audiovisual teleconferencing between children who are physically isolated in germ-free rooms of a ward for leukemia treatment, and their relatives and friends in the outside world. I think this is a great use of Skype to lessen the burden of isolation and because others at Skype think like that, too, we are currently looking how to best support this project. I'll keep you posted here on the Community news.

The work in this project also seems to be where his motivation for the community stems from: "Helping is spreading the good news: Yes, you can master your issues. Such a mission is not only good for humans whose life is at stake. And to tell the whole truth: in the end no one increases his competence on Skype more than the supporter himself.”

The Support Network wishes you all the best in supporting your children patients. And hopefully you enjoy increasing your competence in Skype some time longer by supporting our community.

Thank you, kicks-mobile! 

Don't miss to check this blog space tomorrow for the final end of year community award of 2011.  

After yesterday's "Android Bughunter" community award today it's time to honor a member of our Windows community. His profession is on a different field than the bughunter, he's more into posting helpful ressources to get other user's Skype up and running. And although we had him already mentioned in week 46's Community News, that did not stop him until today Of course I'm talking about no one else than our's Noxxer, original creator of the "Skype Windows technical errors [MEGATHREAD]".

I had the chance to ask him a bit about his engagement here in the community and he was happy to share a few

Claudius: Can you please introduce yourself shortly?

NoxxeR: My name is Nader, I am a graduate of computer sciences and I have been studying programming concepts, operating systems and program execution methods for the past 6 years. My major was games development.

C: That's an interesting background. What brought you from games to Skype?

N: My goal in Skype team here is that i love computers. Not all people are interested in them actually. We have this big problem at Skype which i noticed it at work so much that people tend to ask for a magic button to solve their problems. But they do not tend to know the answer.

C: And that's when you thought about starting this "Megathread" about solutions for common problems?

N: I started this thread as a small tutorial which I hope to let people understand more technical terminology which are essential at our time to try and also solve problem even if they are not Skype ones. I have been through technical troubleshooting for over 8 years now.

C: One can definitely tell that. I personally (and probably hundres of more community users - today it's more than 750 views already) really enjoy the detailed explanations you are sharing there. It's a pleasure that on behalf of the community you'll be awared with the special rank "The Documentator" .

N: I love the appreciation and i wanted to tell you that Skype being an amazing solution for many people and a great program graphics and programming wise. I wanted to be a member of the family so that i be part of this great community. 

Thanks for answering my questions and looking forward to see more questions answered thoroughly thanks to you. Watch this blog space tomorrow for the third end of year community award of 2011.

The end of 2011 is coming closer and it's time to look back at a year that brought us a new community software (and a new community manager). We've changed quite a bit how we as Skypers and you interact in this Support Network community. Most of our trusted Super Users thankfully continued this trip and moved over from the old forum with us. Thanks for that!

But it's also the right time to say thank you to all the new community members that we got to know in the past 6 months. For example we've seen tremendous support from the people at the Android board. They helped use release four updates to the app adding and enhancing the Skype video calling experience on several Android devices.

With the wide range of available Android devices on the market we can not test video calling on each and every one of them. This is where the helpful community came into play: Thanks to them supplying us technical details about their problematic devices we could fix it not only for them but thousands more Skype users out there.

There are many Android community members that we have to say thank you, I would just like to pick igalaktiker as an example as he supplied detailed reports and still continues to help us. We'd like to thank him by promoting him to the rank of "Android Bughunter" here in the community. Keep up the great work!

Watch this blog space for the next community award tomorrow.

Welcome to the latest edition of our "Community News". These news updates give you an overview of what has happened in our community in the past week. I am looking forward to hear how you like these and what additional topics you like to see covered here.

Community chitchat

We have restructured the layout in the English category area a bit based on your feedback. The Community section has been moved to the bottom of the listing to give you faster access to the popular "Frequently Asked" and Skype on Computer and Mobile areas. What do you think about this change? Anything you can't find right now?

Thread of The Week

There was a nice thread started on the Windows board about a compact layout during group calls. It would be interesting to hear your input about this idea. Maybe you have a suggestion about how you would like to see the call view to be changed?

Post highlight

A regular reappearing question is the one about the bandwidth consumption of Skype calls (both audio and video). That's especially interesting on mobile devices. That's where ruwim's reply on the bandwidth unit used in the technical call info comes in really handy. Thanks for sharing.

Member of The Week

Long time community user VoodooDoll has been accumulating quite some credits over the past weeks by. He is mainly active on the Windows board where he has created several very useful topics on the common questions for this platform. Thanks a lot for that!

And by the way: If you come accross any message you find helpful, funny, offering a solution or all of it at the same time: Please click on the "Kudo +1" button below the message to show your appreciation.

Welcome to the latest edition of our "Community News". These news updates give you an overview of what has happened in our community in the past week. I am looking forward to hear how you like these and what additional topics you like to see covered here.

Community chitchat

The last week community discussion was dominated by some crashing issue with Skype for Windows. Almost all users could get their Skype running again within minutes by upgrading to our 5.7 beta version. We saw a lot of similar message all over the Windows board. It would be great if more users made use of the search feature to find the solution without even having to wait for a reply.

Thread of The Week

Definitely the instructions to upgrade your Skype for Windows installation is the thread of the week.

Post highlight

Some times the helping message can be as short as a a pointer towards the right entry in the Skype knowledgebase. Again our Super User g4pilut is sharing his vast Skype expertise on running multiple Skype account simultaneously. Thanks for that.

Member of The Week

Finally our long time contributor ruwim agreed to accept the honour of becoming a Super User on the community. It's great to have im on board and seeing him helping even better thanks to the new tools available to Super Users. Congrats!

And by the way: If you come accross any message you find helpful, funny, offering a solution or all of it at the same time: Please click on the "Kudo +1" button below the message to show your appreciation.

A Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you, your family, loved ones and friends here in the Skype Support Network Community,

Welcome to the latest edition of our "Community News". These news updates give you an overview of what has happened in our community in the past week. I am looking forward to hear how you like these and what additional topics you like to see covered here.

Community chitchat

We are excited to see the Skype Support Network and our Social Support offerlings (like Twitter or Facebook) were being shortlisted for the for the UK E-Consultancy Innovation in Customer & User Experience Award. It's great to see our efforts to help our customers being appreciated. And besides

. Thanks a lot for that.

Thread of The Week

An interesting discussion taking place on how it's possible to do Searching for a person in a specific country in different Skype versions. Looking forward for your input on this discussion but also don't miss our guide on adding contacts.

Post highlight

Our respected contributor ruwim did it again: His post reply on "Error 2738 & other issues" is the swiss knife on installation errors. Hats off to you once again.

Member of The Week

This week's highlighted member is kwinghui who is sharing his knowledge and insight in using Skype on iPad. It seems the touch input of these tablets sometimes isn't as intuitive as advertisted and that's where kwinghui's detailed explanations come in handy. Thanks a lot (also on behalf of Apple ) for guiding your fellow Skype users in their iPad experience. 

And by the way: If you come accross any message you find helpful, funny, offering a solution or all of it at the same time: Please click on the "Kudo +1" button below the message to show your appreciation.

Welcome to the third issue of our "Community News". These news reports give you an overview of what has happened in our community in the past week. I am looking forward to hear how you like these and what additional topics you like to see covered here.

Community chitchat

The big news in the beginning of last week was the crash on sign in problems for some of our Windows users which brought quite an increase in visitors to our community. We also asked for help in pinpointing the cause for this crash by supplying logs. Some users  shared this information and helped our development team to get it resolved. Thanks a lot for that.

Thread of The Week

Here's a little overlap with the Member of the Week (see below) but this brilliant thread is just to valuable to leave it unmentioned. Take a look at the "Skype technical errors Megathread" with a detailed description of Windows tech problems and their solutions. Epic.

Post highlight

A very good explanation on how to start a new thread by Power User Primemover: Help Us To Help You! (How to Start a New Thread).

Member of The Week

This week's highlighted member is NoxxeR who just signed up a week ago and brought new input to the Windows boards. His highlight is the "Skype technical errors Megathread" where he explains the most common problems and their solutions all in one condensed thread. Great stuff, thanks for that NoxxeR also on behalf of all the users you could help with answers to their questions.

And by the way: If you come accross any message you find helpful, funny, offering a solution or all of it at the same time: Please click on the "Kudo +1" button below the message to show your appreciation.

Welcome to the third issue of our "Community News". These news reports give you an overview of what has happened in our community in the past week. I am looking forward to hear how you like these and what additional topics you like to see covered here.

Community chitchat

We have seen quite an increase in Friendship requests on our board with the same name. While this might seem like a handy way to expand your contact list please also don't miss the easy ways to discover friends of your's that are already in Skype. Our Skype support pages have detailed guides on adding and importing contacts.

Thread of The Week

Every now and then community users are asking whether it's possible to transfer Skype products like subscriptions or online numbers from one Skype name to another. Ours truly Andre explains what's possible and what not. A revealing read.

Post highlight

Skype customer support is people answering and helping with your Skype questions. And just like you they like to hear a nice "Thank you" when they did a good job. Thanks to User "BeachWood12" who took the time to say "Thank you" to our support staff "Keiko".

Member of The Week

This week's highlighted member is Saber who has helped especially on the english Mac boards and helped overcome quite a few installation issues. Thanks you Saber also on behalf of all the users you could help with answers to their questions. Keep it up!

And by the way: If you come accross any message you find helpful, funny, offering a solution or all of it at the same time: Please click on the "Kudo +1" button below the message to show your appreciation.



Welcome to the second issue of our "Community News". These news reports give you an overview of what has happened in our community in the past week. I am looking forward to hear how you like these and what additional topics you like to see covered here.

Community chitchat

This community has always allowed us to listen to you, our users: The way you use Skype, the way you would like to use it but cannot yet and how you would like Skype to see improved so you can use it even better. To gather some more focussed user feedback we have set up a dedicated board where you will see a question being posted weekly by our Research and Insight team. The team is looking forward for your participation on the user feedback board.

Thread of The Week

A valid question raised by user Babylon6000 is "Why I don't have skyecandy on my Skype tool?". Maybe you have the answer.

Post highlight

Ever wondered where Skype stores it's userdata? That can be useful to have your conversation history covered in your backup strategy. Again Super User "Neil" shows how Skype's data folder can be moved to a location of your choice .

Member of The Week

This week's highlighted member is luis_erasmo. Over the cause of the last weeks already he shared a lot of helpful advice, especially on the spanish boards. Thanks a lot Luis also on behalf of all the users you could help with answers to their questions. Keep up the great work.

And by the way: If you come accross any message you find helpful, funny, offering a solution or all of it at the same time: Please click on the "Kudo 1" button below the message to show your appreciation.

Welcome to the first issue of our "Community News". These news reports give you an overview of what has happened in our community in the past week. I am looking forward to hear how you like these and what additional topics you like to see covered here.

Community chitchat

We have flattened the board layout of our community category a bit by removing the "Coffee corner" we used as a place for general discussion. You can continue with that in - you might have guessed it - the "General Discussion" board.

Additionally we have added the new "Me too" buttons to our threads. Find out more about it and leave your feedback. in this short introduction post.

Thread of The Week

An interesting exchange about how best to extend an existing subcription to cover calls to mobile phones or additional countries.

Post highlight

You probably have encountered this once as well: Your Skype group conversation suddenly has some a bit older messages popping up in the history. Super User "Neil" (with our true moderator Norman Musgrave acting as a relay) explains why this happens and why it helps to keep Skype running online.

Member of The Week

Magoslo is our Member of the Week! He has been replying and helping a lot on the italian boards and thus just earned his Super User rank. Thank you, Magoslo, for your responses in the forums, especially helping user with italian Online numbers.

When you came to our community in search for help with Skype this has probably happened to you already: Using the community search you have found an existing message which describes the exact same issue you are facing or asks the question you wanted to raise. Until now you had to reply with a "I'm having this problem as well" message. 

Entering our latest feature enhancement: You will now see on the bottom of the first message of a thread a new button which allows you to state exactly that:

The idea is that we can find out much more easily which messages are most important to the majority of our community users and address them. In addition it helps users to tell if their issue might be a more widespread one.

We are currently testing this feature and might adapt it according to your feedback. How do you like it so far? Did you use it and do you find it useful?

We have just added some new Skype Avatars for you to select in your Community user profile. When you are logged in follow this link to your settings to view them all:

Welcome to the Support Network.

This place is our new community for everything Skype. Everyone's invited to join in and we hope you find what you need.

How to get started:

• Exploring? Using the search box at the top is the quickest, but feel free to click around
  
  
• Participating? You'll need to register if you want to post a question or join a discussion. Sign-in if you have a Skype ID or Join Skype if you don't
  
  
• Recommending? If someone gives you the right answer, remember to 'Accept' the solution so others know it works
  
  
• Appreciating? This is a community, it's all about respect. If someone helps you, don't forget to give them Kudos by clicking the star button below their post.
  
  
• Meet the experts? If you want to know who's who on the Support Network please read the Introduction Post
  
  
• Gremlins? We're in the beta mode at the moment and if you find something weird, wrong or broken or have a suggestion for improvements, please let us know in the feedback discussion
  
  
• The Law? We've got some guidelines that let us keep the community, safe. Make sure you read them!

But most importantly: Have fun

P.S.: I'm Claudius, your Community Manager. The team and I are the one's who'll be making sure everything works and adding all the cool new features we've got lined up!