skype on thin client

[cdwaldron]

Not sure where this topic should be placed but since anything goes in the lounge, I will start here.
Lisa Compton had mentioned in another thread that she had real difficulty in getting her D-link DPH-50U to work on a thin client for Skype. Any one out there tried it? Lisa, do you come to the lounge?

[lcompton]

Good morning, cdwaldron.

Lisa Compton had mentioned in another thread that she had real difficulty in getting her D-link DPH-50U to work on a thin client for Skype. Any one out there tried it?

Well, no, I never said that I "had real difficulty" getting my DPH-50U to install on the Thin Client. What I said was, "By-the-way, the DPH-50U installation on the Thin Client is very very unpleasant. I'm not sure I even want to bother documenting the procedure because it's a total pain." You may check the original post for yourself. So, if you're going to quote me, at least be a sport and get it right.

The problem stems from the fact that the OEM Windows XPe image from Hewlett Packard has an early version of Service Pack 2. Unfortunately, many of the files in Service Pack 2, and indeed Windows base code, have been updated since the OEM Windows XPe image was released. As a result, it was necessary for me to graft seven specific files from a more recent copy of Service Pack 2 into the Thin Client image. Is it difficult? Not really. Is it a pain? Absolutely.

Now, that is not to say that I do not have difficulty with some things. For example, I am presently teaching myself guitar, and I am absolutely experiencing difficulty with the fret work. Learning the finger positions for the chords is not difficult, but getting the fingertips placed properly such that I don't get buzz in the string or inadvertently touch adjacent strings effectively killing the chord is proving to be a real challenge. In fact, I am very nearly convinced that Em (E minor) is not humanly possible to play. Well, I haven't been able to get my fingers in position to play it.

The other thing that is negatively impacting my progress is the excruciating pain in the fingertips from pressing down on the strings on the fret board. After about 15 minutes of practice, my fingertips have pretty much had it.

I'm determined though.

Lisa, do you come to the lounge?

Not generally. But, it was kind of difficult not to notice my full name being used in a post.

In other news, I've been using my Thin Client/Skype/DPH-50U for a while now and no complaints. Call quality is excellent and the fact that I can use my Uniden cordless telephones (that I was using with magicJack) is a total plus. Since abandoning magicJack as my home telephone service, I've had lengthy customer service calls with GoDaddy and Verizon. It was a genuine pleasure not having to worry about the call being forcibly terminated.

My laptop telephony server has been returned to telephony service and I plugged in my secondary magicJack returning it to service. I don't use it, but I plan to leave it in service until it expires this September.

[mberlant]

So, how much CPU is the Skype client using while it is supposed to be idle, i.e., when you are not engaged in a chat or call? And how much bandwidth is it using when it is supposed to be idle?

Is there any advantage in using a thin client over a full PC in terms of how much of your horsepower and bandwidth you are contributing to Skype's livelihood?

[lcompton]

Good evening, mberlant.

So, how much CPU is the Skype client using while it is supposed to be idle, i.e., when you are not engaged in a chat or call?

Let's see:




Well, according to Task Manager, it looks like Skype uses exactly zero percent (that's 0%) when not in use. There is some overlap in these two window snap shots because my Thin Client isn't a very busy little guy. But, aside from Task Manager eating up a few CPU cycles while I perused the list, the CPU spends most of its time idle and happy.

Oh, and you'll notice that the D-Link DPH-50U drivers, VoIPMonitor.exe and VoIP Agent.exe, aren't very busy either.

All-in-all, my little Thin Client/DPH-50U/Skype telephone server is a well-behaved child.

And how much bandwidth is it using when it is supposed to be idle?

This is a little trickier to quantify. I don't happen to have any easy way to get absolute byte counts of inbound and outbound traffic on my Thin Client without installing more software on it, which I don't want to do. But, I can tell you that it doesn't act as a Skype super node because I have disabled that functionality. My Linksys WRT-54G built-in firewall further restricts Thin Client access to Skype telephony only.

That said, I was perusing my router logs the other day and I did notice that my Skype telephony server does have some brief and bizarre TCP exchanges with ominous-looking IP addresses in the U.S. and Canada. At first glance, these appear to be attempts to perform a look-up, which are promptly denied because my infrastructure blocks them. This phenomena is under further study and I will provide another update once I have more factual information to share.

I'm also looking into a way to capture the byte-count data you've requested without installing any additional software on my Thin Client. My preferred method is to capture the data out of the MIB variables on the network interface using an SNMP database query tool like MRTG. I'm not certain whether the network interface in the Thin Client supports SNMP though. We shall see...

Is there any advantage in using a thin client over a full PC in terms of how much of your horsepower and bandwidth you are contributing to Skype's livelihood?

I don't see why. When I was testing Skype I was running it on my laptop telephony server which is a Dell Latitude C800 from year 2000. It has USB1.1 ports and a 1GHz Pentium III CPU. Everything ran fine for me.

Again, if you don't want Skype to do things behind your back, turn them off. It's easy and I've already posted resources describing how to do it.