17-X-2011.
From the blogue:
And Skype as a tool turned against developers
I already wrote about Skype being dumbed down. Meanwhile, I had a serious problem with them, having paid an annual subscription for something (no, Microsoft, I'm not keen on memorizing your stupid "product" names) that should give me group video for a year... which was sort of fixed after a week or so. It didn't give me what I paid, but instead kept offering to buy it again. I'm now getting group video (and "free" calls to US and Canada, bundled in, which I didn't really need), but Skype is still not quite getting it - it says on the main window that I have 1 subscription, but when I get to the profile page it says I got 2 subscriptions (which is correct).
But this is not the reason I'm writing this. It's the programmatic support for writing add-ons for Skype. There used to be a Skype4COM class that I could instantiate and get access to the full set of features. I didn't use it for much, just to export the chats into a table, so I could more easily see, date by date, what happened when.
Now this COM object vanished. Don't know when exactly, I updated the table once every few months. Last time I tried, bang - no such class. Skype4com.dll was nowhere to be found*. I had to google a lot, until I found where to download it, and where to put it so it would get registered, which didn't work, actually, the entry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\m$\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDlls didn't get created and I had to do it manually.
Turns out it still doesn't work, because it requires the extras manager in Skype, which isn't installed anymore. I'm presently at version 5.5.0.119, and it seems (from googling Skype's own forum) that the last version when it worked was 5.3.0.116. Which is probably just days before Microsoft bought them. I may try to reinstall that version, though I'm not sure what will happen with my subscription then.
It seems that wide access to programmability, which Skype previously had, is going the way of many m$'s programming tools - into oblivion.
Thanks to the corporate greed. This seems like yet another case where the builders of the market benches want a cut from everything that's sold over these benches... regardless of whether it's actually sold, and how much of it is. Just like Apple's taking a hefty cut of every app or song that's sold through their store, it seems that Microsoft tries the same trick: you need to buy the OS and the tools from them just to build some app that would hook into Skype, and then you need to jump through several hoops, some of which may require components or certificates you'd need to buy, and then you'd need to register your product with the store (in this case, Skype add-ons). Then you'd probably have to pay to someone to process your payments, too.
They don't really care whether you sell any. They sold you the tools, certificates, OS and whatnot. That's called entrance barrier. And if you sell some, the better - you make more money for them, and possibly you get some, too. The additional benefit is that I, as a casual power user, can't get my data, I have to buy some third party tool for that. And they own the market benches.
And, oh, how that got worse later...
On fifteenth at Arpi's, engagement. This is where we got acquainted with Dragan, his brother and parents. We two and Lena arrived first, while only Arpi and Višnja were there, then Boba and his cute little blonde girl came, then the guests from Kladovo, and eventually Višnja's son with some lush chick, in succession. Later I will be amazed many times how such a piece of raw material manages to hook up with such good chicks every time, and how we never see any of them more than twice. There was also another pal of theirs, some I guess Šandor (Sándor), nicknamed Sendi, whom we'll keep seeing.
The dinner was appropriately rich, with a cake, nope, two cakes, we drank what there was, this was the getting to know each other.
In the afternoon, talked with Nina. Raja now regularly says "baba" (granny), specially when he sees the laptop. During the talk, he managed to turn off the camera, swing the monitor sideways (it's a HP tablet with swivel gear), and then slap it shut. In the end, he uncovered her left tit and started sucking. Self service, indeed.
Lena called later, and I had just too many things open at the time - Toad, IIS manager, bejewelled2 in the browser, several Skype windows, couple of instances of fox etc etc. At some point machine becomes just too slow, several things take a forever to refresh, then two forevers, then it freezes.
Several attempts at booting show that there's some screwup in the filesystem of M:, F: and O: drives... what, these are on three physical drives and they all just develop bad sectors out of the green? And this is not the first time, either. Sorry, this motherboard may be new, but it flies. ("It flies" means "it's got to fly [out the window]", in the terse Serbian idiom).
Hey, the pic shows the morning chat was on nezavisni... Let's see what did I have open. Firefox, gPlanarity (who knows to which level did I get, over hundred for sure), the next I don't know, terminal window, some webcam applet, skype, four unknowns, workspace switcher. I.e. nezavisni runs under Ubuntu, since who knows when. And the skype had a screenshot button. This button later vanished, though you could still do it, it just took three clicks. It was still possible to tie to a hotkey, I think I used alt+y (y being bottom left, serbian keyboard layout is a quertz). Then it vanished completely. See above.
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* and nowhere to be anything else done to it
Mentions: Arpad Gunaroši (Arpi), Bejewelled2, blogue, Dobrivoj Gunaroši (Boba), Dragan Umljanić, fox, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Majkrosoft (m$), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), nezavisni, Ryu (Raja), Višnja, in serbian
20-X-2011 - 5-VII-2026