No sleight on Ed Fries, but ever since I interviewed him, I haven't been able to keep a Skype conversation going longer than a few minutes. In fact, I think the sleight is on Vista. Now that I have 2 Vista machines, I know the issues are not viral or spyware related. I am working to narrow down which software apps are the same on both, because the issues I am having are just growing to be incredibly annoying. After keeping any app open for 'too long' which can be anywhere from 20 minutes to 8 hours, and text entered in the app will have characters remapped.
/ will be Shift+3 or the ~ button, ? will be Shift+6 or some place I cannot find. The / and using shift to get ? are é and É, and various other keys, seemingly at random, will be mapped different than the expected layout. Only closing the app will clear this, and it is only in the one pp, not all of windows. The app is different from time to time. Firefox one time, World of Warcaft another time, next it will be Notepad. Technically inclined folks have suggested virus or spyware, but on 2 different machines? Unlikely.
Then we have my Skype issues. It's really a video issue, but as Skype is usually the most reliable, and the only one without more banner ads than an NFL stadium, I use it. I have been trying for a week, and even with more than half CPU and RAM free on either machine, barely any network traffic, and no obvious signs of a problem, the calls I make drop. Better than 90% dropped, only maybe 2% lasting more than 5 minutes. Yeah, I am a bit frustrated. Vista is an upgrade? Since when?
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