I regularly use Skype to communicate with customers via VoIP. It's free, it works well and it also allows many of my long term customers to "know" when I'm available for a chat about non-urgent issues. In other words, I'm "online and available" to help at that time - not working with another customer.

So I was initially concerned when a customer got in touch with me yesterday to say that if he had interpreted the Skype License and Terms & Conditions correctly - that Skype didn't permit Commercial use of it's free service.

The customer in question is a member of F.A.S.T. and has recently taken large positive steps to make sure they are legally compliant in their use of software - a step to be applauded. I myself audited my application use recently (see Rebuilding Windows XP) and found more than one app that was "free for personal use", but didn't stretch to my commercial use.

Anyway - I contacted Skype to clarify the situation and thankfully, the answer was a clear "Yes, you can use Skype in business". A brief explanation can be found in Skype's Knowledgebase here.

The confusion may have arisen over the fact the license specifies you can't use Skype for Commercial purposes - but what it means in plain English is, don't re-sell Skype as a service you provide.

My customer was right to question the terms of the license though. It's always worth clarifying what a product, especially a free product, allows you to do with it. As I've discovered myself, finding out a "free" product isn't legally useable in your business doesn't necessarily mean you have to pay out for licenses. Take a closer look at the Open Source alternatives and often you'll find a genuinely free and often superior product.

"How do I send Microsoft Publisher 2003 files to other people?" - I've been asked this question twice in the past week, so here's the short answer.

There isn't an MS Publisher Viewer (as you can find for the other MS Office applications) - so if you're sending the document to someone else who doesn't own Publisher 2003, just for them to view, then print it as a PDF file and send it over that way. If you don't have a PDF printer installed - get yourself over to http://www.cutepdf.com/ and check out the Free edition there.

If you need to send the document to someone else for editing - and they don't own Publisher 2003, then the answer is to save the file as a colour .TIFF file which can be imported into most applications. You can't save .TIFF files directly from Publisher, but you can save to an .MDI file, then open that and save it as a .TIFF file from there! Full details at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/HA0111...

The second solution was one I needed today as I sent a draft on an advertisement to a magazine publisher who is still using Corel Draw (queue flood of irate Corel Draw users e-mailing me).

Tomorrow I'll cover how to convert MS Publisher 2003 files so they can be imported into PrintShop Companion for DOS, Atari ST and Commodore Amigas.

No... not really! ;-)

If you've seen any of your Windows Live Messenger contacts with a tiny logo next to their name - the reason it's there is they are choosing to support the Messenger "I'm Making a Difference Campaign".

Using Windows Live Messenger 8.1 -  simply sign up and every time you start a conversation with a contact (wherever in the world they might be) a small donation is made to the Charity of your choice. A simple and easy way to do some good.

At the moment, the campaign is U.S. specific, but even if you are outside the U.S then by signing up you can both show your support for your chosen charity, and increase the likelihood of the campaign being put to work outside the States.

I covered Charity Donations for Tight Arses in an entry last year - so if you aren't doing your bit already in some way, there are plenty of methods that are simple, painless and in many cases, free!

The team over at SBSH software have released v5.2 of it's PocketBreeze software today - PocketBreeze being my favourite tool for making the "Today" screen on any Pocket PC device useful beyond comparison.

I've recently upgraded to a T-Mobile MDA Vario II 3G/HSDPA based mobile phone that runs Windows Mobile 5 - thus eliminating the need for a separate PDA (goodbye and in certain aspects, good riddance, my Dell Axim x50v!) I'll give a full rundown of my experiences of the Vario II in the near future, but suffice to say - PocketBreeze and PocketInformant were the first two bits of software I installed on it.

PocketBreeze simply adds your Calendar, Task List and Contact List to your Today Screen. This makes keeping upto date with what you are doing and where you are going a, erm, breeze!

PocketBreeze v5.2 is a free ipgrade for registered owners of v5 and in a nutshell - it's really really nice! The new sidebar style interface and "Contact List" is superb. Free? Bargain!

Pocket Informant replaces the in-built Calendar, Contact and Task List of your PDA with something that is powerful and easy to use. Although they are written and sold by two different companies, PB supports PI without any problems - and they make an excellent combination.

Anyone out there PDA or Smartphone users? Get in touch and let me know. It's a topic I don't cover much on this blog, but it (and the whole subject of Mobile Computing) is something I'd happily write more about if it's of interest to you, good reader.

At the start of 2007, the Companies Act of 2007 came into force - affecting everyone running limited company or limited liability partnership business.

Although the act is ridiculously long - there are two important aspects of the Act that should be highlighted to readers of this blog, affecting any of the afore mentioned type of businesses that runs e-mail or a web-site (so that really should mean 99% of businesses!).

The first is that it is now mandatory to have your companies registered office address, registration number and names of directors displayed on all of your literature - including your web-site and e-mails. So make sure to update your e-mail signatures and your web-site contact page with these details (the details only need to be displayed once on any web-site).

The second aspect is that you must make your web-site accessible to all, including anyone who is deaf, partially-sighted or blind. The W3C (a web governing body) has a list of recommendations, broken down into Priorities (Priority 1 - your web-site must satisfy the check, Priority 2 - your web-site should satisfy the check, Priority 3 - your web-site should attempt to satisfy this check for the benefit of it's readers) that you need to consider with your web-site.

Having recently re-jigged the Netlink web-site - I followed the W3C Recommendations through. I'm no superstar Web Developer, but achieving the Priority 1, and most of the Priority 2 recommendations is not at all difficult (in fact, a package like Microsoft Expression almost forces you to tick all these boxes before publishing your site). At worst, it usually involves a bit of tweaking of the HTML code of your web-site.

For those with larger or more complicated sites, it's definitely worth going back to your Web Developer to ask them to provide you with assurances of conformity to these new standards. Failure could theoritically lead to someone with a disability suing you for making your web-site unreadable to them.