Call me, even when I'm out

For anyone that has a website, blog or some other online page that your friends, work colleagues or customers visit, you need to think about how they can get in touch with you. One way is to use Skype, the free PC-to-PC internet telephone. The best part is that you can include a Call me! button on your website or blog that enables people to call you through Skype without having to load the program, find you among their contacts and then call you. One click and they are chatting with you.

There's a useful Call me! button generator at the Skype website and you enter your Skype username and then select one of four different styles. The code to paste into your web page is shown at the bottom of the page.

Click the cursor inside the box then press Ctrl+A to select all the code and then Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard. Now you need to go to your web page editor or blog editor. Place the cursor where you want the button to appear and look among the menus and tools for an option to insert some HTML code (don't paste it in wysiwyg mode or it won't work). When you've switched to HTML code view, press Ctrl+V to paste in the button code.

The Call me! button can be inserted into emails too and it's great to include it with your signature at the end of a message. Once again you need to paste it into code view and not the normal view. In Outlook Express, for example, choose Source Edit on the Edit menu and then select the Source tab at the bottom of the New Message window before pasting in the code.

What if you are out when someone calls? With a normal call you would have an answerphone that enables the caller to leave a voice message. Skype doesn't have any built in facilities to record calls, but Pamela can. Pamela is a great utility and there are four versions. The free Basic one is good enough for home use. Download it and install it. When you run it with Skype, Skype will ask if you want to allow Pamela access to its features and you must say yes. Now whenever you make a call a window will pop up asking if you want to record the conversation. There are also facilities for automatically answering calls when you aren't around. Of course, you'll need to leave your PC switched on and connected to the internet with a broadband connection, but that's OK.