Tonka Park » skype

How to implement your 4HWW Muse?

Matt — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:14:57 +0000

If you have read Tim Ferris’ 4 Hour Work Week in the past 2 years you are likely itching with ideas to put your income on autopilot. I have read portions of the book on multiple occasions trying to keep the inspiration going. I have portions of the concepts in place and am always looking for more ways to implement the new rich life Tim writes about.

The tools for your muse

Tim mentions many great tools to get your muse up and running. At Tonka Park we use many of this such as wordpress, wufoo, skype, google adwords and analytics and more that he doesn’t mention. I feel that we have a good handle on these tools and have made them work for different projects.

So that brings us to a new service from Tonka Park. Test, Rollout and Automation.

Test, Rollout and Automation

4 hour work week introduces many of the concepts but not all readers are going to be familiar or even comfortable with these tools. Perhaps you have already outsourced your life and you have another muse but you don’t want to go through the test, rollout and automation process by yourself. This is where Tonka Park will step in.

Outsource your muse

If you have a great business product idea and don’t have the time or desire to work on websites, contact forms, pay-per-click advertising or online shopping carts, then you need to contact us today, hello@tonkapark.com or fill out the form on on our homepage.

Find out more about our plans to help you test, rollout and automate your muse.

4HWW Muse Creation System

Improve Skype phone quality

Matt — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:47:29 +0000

I recently wrote about switching over to Skype for our home phone so that I could have a local number to use for my upstart freelance web design and development company, Tonka Park, here in the Lake of the Ozarks. After using the service for some family calls over the last few weeks I am noticing that the calls are often interrupted by the other person not being able to hear me on the other end. It has been frustrating at best not being able to use Skype for our calls but having to jump on the cell phone. As most of you know there is nothing more a man likes than a problem to solve. Since I am a solution provided I went looking for the solution. Hopefully these steps will help others fighting the same battle.

The first simple step I took was to make sure the Skype process on my computer had priority over other applications.

Open task manager in Windows. (right click task bar or ctrl+alt+delete)
Right click on Skype.exe
Set Priority Above Normal.
Referenced this post.

The next step which will probably have the most impact on improving the quality is configuring the router I am using to connect my desktop to the cable modem. I am using the Netgear MR814v2 router to share wired and wireless internet at our home.

Find your computer IP, in my case 192.168.0.3.
Open Skype.
Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Connection
Copy the port number being used for connections.
Login to the router administration page
Add a custom service called Skype (under Services or Port Forwarding)
Add the ip of your computer.
Add the start and end point equal with the port found in Skype Tools.
Save your settings.
More details here using a mac

I have also turned on the Skype technical call details so I can watch if I lose any packets during my upcoming calls. Hopefully, these small changes make a big difference in my Skype experience going forward.

I noticed that these changes by themselves did not improve my situation. So when all else fails I uninstalled Skype, uninstalled Logitech software for the webcam and microphone rebooted and downloaded the latest Skype and reinstalled. Then I downloaded the latest software from Logitech and reinstalled. I reapplied the settings in Skype to use the Logitech video and microphone, set the sound settings and then restarted the computer. I also reset my router to make sure previous settings were applied.

The last 2 or 3 calls have worked well. Perhaps when I installed Skype or Logitech I had a bad install or missed a setting.

Skype, the new home phone

Matt — Thu, 07 May 2009 02:20:48 +0000

Since we moved to Camdenton we have continued using our previous cell phone numbers from Phoenix. My wife and I decided we would like to get new local numbers. This meant we would have to deal with the cell phone companies.

We have been using Verizon without incident since we got married, 4 years ago. With me working from home now having 2 cell phones is not necessary. So we began looking for the best way to get down to one cell phone and a home line. We looked at AT&T and Verizon for the cell coverage and Charter, Vonage and a few others for home lines. The home lines all ran about $24.99/month. This seemed a bit pricey when we would still have a cell phone for $39.99/month.

This led me to look into Skype. I download the application and made my first free test call from my computer using the high speed broadband internet I am already paying for. It had some issues but likely because I was logged onto multiple computers, one running VPN.

The problem was that I could only make calls to people running Skype on their computer for free. This didn’t make sense as my family and friends aren’t going to be at their computers everytime I call. So I took a look at the subscription services offered by Skype. For unlimited US & Canada calling Skype offers a subscription package of $2.95/mo. This seemed like a deal. I could get a whole year of outgoing phone calls from my computer to any phone in the US for less than a month of Vonage or Charter phone service. I was intrigued. However, the big reason to have a home line was to have a local number I could put on my business cards for my freelance Camdenton web designwork. The subscription didn’t give me the ability to have an actual phone number or receive voicemail from clients.

That is where SkypeIn™ comes into play. This is a online phone number where anyone can call your computer. Once you have a monthly subscription you can add on the SkypeIn™ number for a small monthly price. You even get to select the local number from any state and city in the US. The lists aren’t extensive but you do get a choice unlike when going through the phone companies.

At the time we signed up Skype was offering 25% off the yearly subscription and 50% off of the SkypeIn™ number. So for a year of phone service from my computer, with voicemail, unlimited calling and a local phone number we are paying less than $6/mo.

I have made a few calls to my own cell phones for testing, using my webcam microphone and desktop speakers until we find a headset or wifi phone has worked well. My first real call tonight to my brother in Nashville went 10 minutes and it was clear with no problems. So after one day I think adding a Skype phone number will work out great and allow us to cut our cell phone bill in half every month.

Improve Skype phone quality