gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials » skype plugin

Skype Translator

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:45:23 +0000

Automatic translations are a good but imperfect way of being able to understand text that is written in a language that is not spoken by the user (or not spoken sufficiently to understand the text). Google’s translation service is without doubt one of the most popular – and widely used – automatic translation services on the Internet. One of its interesting features is the api which can be used to add translation options to software programs and other web services.

The Skype Translator plugin is using Google Translator to provide automatic translations for Skype conversations. The plugin needs access rights which can be given or denied upon first start of the plugin and Skype.

Once the rights have been given it is possible to chat with contacts using the external interface. The interface consists of a separate chat window with translation options provided for messages that are send and received.

Sending a message with translation enabled will display the translated message to the chat partner. A protocol that is displaying the original and translated message is shown in the same program tab which makes it possible to chat directly from that tab without paying attention to the Skype window at all.

The translated messages that are send will appear in the original Skype window as well. Skype Translator is a plugin for the voip client. The plugin is available for download at the Skype website. It is only compatible with Windows operating systems and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

The Skype plugin Skype Translator has been discontinued. We have covered two third party alternatives in the recent past. Skype Translator and Skype Chat Translator both utilize Google’s Translate Service to translate Skype chats in realtime.

Skype VOIP Recorder

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:21:27 +0000

One of the biggest issues many users have with the VOIP software Skype is that it does not provide a way to record phone conversations. Plugins for Skype are one of the alternative at this point and we have covered some already here at Ghacks: Record Skype Calls. Skype Call Recorder is another computer software program that can be used to record Skype conversations. It uses an external interface that provides all the functions and settings needed to record calls easily. Three buttons on top are used to record Skype calls, to stop the recording and to open the folder containing the recorded conversations.

The folder where the recorded conversations are stored can be selected in the same interface. The recordings will be saved as mp3 files which reduces the storage space requirements on the computer’s hard drive. It is also possible to change the recording mode to Mono, Stereo or Joint Stereo and the recording bitrate (quality) to 32,64 or 128 Kbit. The Skype call recorder can record conversations to Skype online numbers as well as SkypeOut calls which are calls from Skype to regular phones.

Skype Call Recorder runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. It requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 or later and an installed version of the VOIP software Skype.

Mute for Skype

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:33:54 +0000

It is really annoying that Skype does not come with an option to pause and resume music playback in the background when the user receives an incoming call. The VOIP client Skype 4 currently does not provide a way to automatically pause and resume music on the PC and the previous version of Skype offered a way to pause but not to resume Winamp when a call was incoming.

Mute for Skype is a software that can do that, most of the time without problems. The lightweight application requires the Microsoft .net Framework 1.1 or newer. The developer of the plugin unfortunately misses to mention the supported operating systems on the website, it is working in Windows XP.

The only problem is that this application is not developed anymore it seems. The last version is still a beta version from 2005 and I have doubts that this works in Skype 4. If anyone knows a solution that is still developed let me know, would love to give it a try.