Thursday, June 01, 2006

Skype ... where the whole world CAN NOT talk for free. Not even for PAY! Ok ... I had to take a moment to vent about Skype.  What a great product ... what lousy execution.  Their support?  It sucks beyond almost any vendor I have ever dealt with. On my recent Philippines trip, I started to use SkypeOut ... or tried to.  First, I was unable to get them to accept any of my credit cards ... business or personal.  Now these are the same credit cards that I use for all other on-line purchases ... but not with Skype.  Nope.  They wouldn't take them.  So no SkypeOut credit. Well, then I noticed that they accept PayPal ... hmmm ... wonder if that will work.  Yeah!  It worked!  A week ago I was able to pay Skype $10 for SkypeOut credit.  They even gave me an extra $1.60 of credit for paying!  I called lots of people ... for one day.  Then ... back to ground zero. Six days ago ... the morning after my success paying via PayPal ... and after using Skype to make calls for over an hour ... I wen to dail a number only to see a red bar appear that said: Skype Account Blocked - Your Skype account has been blocked!  Click here for details Yeah ... right.  Try clicking ... it takes you to their home page.  Uh guys ... how about if I log into my account?  I simply get another message: You are currently restricted from purchasing services or redeeming vouchers. Please contact Customer Support to review your account status. Ok ... great.  No details ... I click the link ... get taken to a crappy tech support form.  Fine ... I filled it in, posted it, and was sent to a page with a bunch of unrelated "knowledgebase" articles ... with another button to *really* post my support request. So six days ago ... I sent my support request.  And I have done so for each and every day since.  No response.  Oh ... well this monring I finally got back a message saying that they have received my first support request ... sent seven days ago! So Skype has my money ... and has blocked my account.  As for the "free in the US" they claim to be offering?  I can't call those numbers either now ... my account is blocked.  I can call PC to PC ... I think ... but no SkypeOut at all ... nada. So they lie ... the whole world CAN NOT talk for free.  And in my case, I have even paid my $10 and I can not talk ... at least not via Skype.  What a bummer ... some people are screwing up a perfectly good idea. [tags: skype skypeout ripoff voip support sucks] 2:39:31 PM      The Trip to Baguio After spending one day and night in Manila, we headed up to Baguio City ... north of Manila in the Mountains.  We left early and flew Asian Spirit ... in a YS-11 ... an old turboprop airliner.  After taking off, we quickly climbed to ~10,000 feet.  The grey color of Manila slowly began to be sprinkled with green, and the quantity of green again continued to grow as we flew north away from Metro manila. As we continued our flight, the spots of green continued to grow until we were over a large flat valley with some large winding rivers.  Various roads - paved and otherwise - cut convoluted paths between farms, towns, and open ground.  All of these roads seemed to wind in strange directions with no rhyme or reason.  Below, one large river wound below us, leaving groups of buildings, and maybe whole towns, stranded on empty oxbows.  And then the foothills appeared. It was impressive to see the mountains rise from the valley as a series of large sharp ridges.  The river winding below us came from a valley in between some of these ridges, and a large reservior with a dam had been built to hold back its waters.  The mountains continued to rise.  And rise!  All of the sudden the stewardess announced that we were approaching Baguio ... and the mountains continued to climb up towards our altitude.  Below us there were now a few roads winding up the jagged mountain sides ... all looking like dirt roads.  And then the first towns appeared up in the mountains.  As we passed over one of the larger ones ... now looking only a few thousand feet below us ... I caught site of a runway cut into the mountains ... one end spilling out over a shear mountain face.  Baguio Airport? As we now passed that runway the plane began to turn ... yep ... that's Baguio!  I actually shot some pretty good footage of the landing ... amazing mountain with a mix of small homes and big mansions.  The vacation homes of the upper-class, mixed with the homes of the average people.  We continued to bank hard left ... circling around to the other end of the runway that I saw ... to land in the direction of the shear mountain face.  As we got lower and lower there were all sorts of streams and rivers flowing down the mountain, with waterfalls all over the place.  We continued to decend, and finally touched down.  We're in Baguio! As we exited the aircraft, it was immediately cooler than Manila ... by far!  Nice.  We wandered the parking lot ... found a cab ... and headed to Session Road ... one of the main roads in Baguio.  I'll write more later. [tags: philippines baguio ys-11 manila] 1:26:51 AM

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