Chapter 2: Using Skype in Windows 8.1

In This Chapter

arrow.png Finding Skype

arrow.png Getting signed up for Skype

arrow.png Connecting with Skype

arrow.png Getting along with Skype

Everybody knows Skype, the instant text-messaging, long-distance, telephone-killing video-chatting program. Not everybody knows that it started as something of a hacker’s fantasy, about a decade ago, in Estonia. Two of the key players in getting Skype to market, Janus Friis from Denmark, and Niklas Zennstrom from Sweden, spent their earlier years getting Kazaa — the notorious filesharing program — off the ground.

askwoodycom_vista.eps Microsoft bought Skype, lock, stock and barrel camera, in 2011, for a paltry $8.5 billion — yes, that’s billion with a “b.” The brass moved to Redmond, but most of the techies are still in Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.

It's taken Microsoft a couple years to get around to it, but Windows 8.1 ships with a Metro Skype app fully built-in. You just have to find it, set it up, and use it — but only on the Metro tiled side of Windows 8.1, ...

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