Newsletter Archives

• Replacing Skype

  Posted on April 28, 2025 at 02:43 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  In late February, Microsoft announced that Skype would be retired on May 5, 2025. What can you use instead? It’s a lot more complicated than Microsoft makes out.

  Originally developed by Skype Technologies and released in 2003, Skype went through several owners before being acquired in 2011 by Microsoft. Among other things, Redmond replaced Windows Live Messenger (aka MSN Messenger) with Skype and created a new tier, Skype for Business.

  The seemingly firm date is only partially true. If you’re using Skype as a stand-alone, you’ve got just over a month left. Microsoft 365 users have a bit more time for making phone calls — until March 2026.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.17.0, 2025-04-28).

  Microsoft 365 Facetime, Google Voice, Newsletters, Rebtel, Signal, Skype, Teams, Viber, Vonage, WhatsApp, Yolla, Zoom, Zoom Phone

• Use free Teams to make calls like Zoom

  Posted on October 10, 2022 at 02:44 CDT by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Anyone can use Teams Free to set up a group call with video, screen sharing, and other goodies — bypassing all the other Teams stuff about channels, posts, and mentions — which can confuse less-confident computer users.

  Microsoft Teams has a lot going for it, perhaps too much at times. In this article, I’ll explain how to use it for one-to-one and small-group calls. I’ll also review which features are available and what’s not possible with Teams Free.

  Microsoft loves to confuse Teams customers by mixing up the free and paid options. Many of the promoted “Teams features” are really for paid plans only — but you’d know that only by looking in the very fine print.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.41.0, 2022-10-10).

  Microsoft 365 Microsoft 365, Newsletters, Teams, Zoom

• Adapting to remote education — a teacher’s perspective

  Posted on September 6, 2020 at 21:15 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums
  

  DISTANCE LEARNING

  By Kendra Capen

  Each year it starts with the same question: “You’re already back in school?” Followed by the same answer: “Yup, I work at a year-round school.”

  It’s a great schedule for teachers and students — we all get relatively short breaks from each other at regular intervals, and there’s less “relearning” when we’re all back at our desks. Parents and school districts, on the other hand, generally hate it.

  Because a year-round school is kind of a novelty, it often gets overlooked in the normal school-district endeavors.But not this year! We quickly became the teaching equivalent of crash-test dummies.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.35.0 (2020-09-07).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Distance learning AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Online learning apps, Remote teaching, Zoom

• 0patch instrumental in fixing a 0day with Zoom running on Windows 7

  Posted on July 12, 2020 at 07:46 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Details are sparse, but it appears that the folks at 0patch were told of a significant bug in Zoom, the online conferencing app that’s become wildly popular. They notified Zoom of the hole, which only affects Windows 7, then developed and distributed their own “micropatch” fix.

  Zoom released a patch on Friday.

  Remarkably well done, all around.

  On Security Zoom

• Zoom: Is it safe?

  Posted on May 18, 2020 at 01:15 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums
  

  SOCIAL NETWORKING

  By Lincoln Spector

  Have you noticed that the start of every article about Zoom suggests that it has quickly turned into the most needed app on the planet?

  Thanks to the pandemic, what was created as a business-conferencing tool has become the de facto means for ordinary people to connect to each other. Family get-togethers, schools, charity events, remote concerts, and even television hosts now depend on the service.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.19.0 (2020-05-18).

  Social Networking AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Meeting crashing, Video conferencing, Zoom

• Calling all Teams, Slack and Zoom gurus

  Posted on March 20, 2020 at 10:03 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  There’s lots of competition right now for free collaboration/meeting software.

  Microsoft says that use of Teams has spiked 40% in the past week.

  Slack says it’s added 7,000 new users in the past seven weeks.

  Zoom hasn’t released any usage numbers lately (at least none I’ve found), but I’m seeing lots and lots of references to it. Kids in my son’s school are all over it.

  And, yes, I know there’s Skype for Business and Cisco. Go boomers.

  Each is different, and there are certain situations where each has obvious benefits.

  What I want to know is if you have specific, real-world experience with any two of them and, if so, which did you end up using more frequently? Why?

  Other Cisco, Skype, Slack, Teams, Zoom