Okay, if you\'re a geek, you already know this...so this blog is mostly for my family and non-geek friends. (Also if you are a geek, you\'re probably not reading my blog anyway as there are much better geek-sources out there, but I digress).

The short: Skype is a PC to PC and PC to Phone calling program. It\'s been free all along for PC to PC calling as long as both people had Skype installed. However, they used to offer a Skype to PC calling plan called SkypeOUT. This would allow you to make calls from your PC/Mac/Linux box to an ordinary telephone number. I can\'t remember the charge because I never used it. (I\'d normally wait until 7pm and just use my cell phone). Anyway, they\'ve now made that portion of the program free! So I can call anywhere in the U.S. and Canada for no charge from Skype...at least until the end of the year, or until this sort of thing gets outlawed, which ever comes first. (Given that this country is run by big business, I don\'t expect the Verizon, AT&T and MCI\'s of the world to allow this to go one with not a single challenge, but one can hope right?)

Skype also lets you do conference calls, but I imagine thats just for skype to skype calls. On a side note, if you call a cell phone with skype, the cell phone use, of course would have to pay for the airtime according to the terms of their plan.

Anyway...download it...at least for the next 6 months anyway.