Phone Home

I'm already thinking about the expense of phone calls home and I haven't even left yet! I remember hearing of friends who complained about international calls costing something like $12 per minute which causes my head to spin and huge dollar signs to appear and disappear in front of me whenever I think about it. :(

Lucky for me, my brother is a whiz! He's already figuring out ways for my family to use voice over IP (VOIP) programs , such as Teamspeak, to talk to each other. VOIP programs are awesome! I've used Teamspeak and Ventrilo to speak to other players in World of Warcraft (a computer game), who live in New York and Australia.

Now, this same technology might help me talk to my family thousands of miles away. The sound quality is great and a large number of people can all be on the same line at once. This will be a great way to update my entire family at once. Gone are the days of passing the phone from one person to another.

These programs allow you to talk over the Internet for free. One person has to host a server and then that person can tell others a password that allows them to access the program. My brother is going to host the program, so everyone else just needs to have a pair of headphones with a mic (which cost around $15-$20 at RadioShack). This is going to make communication so easy!

Now I'm just trying to figure out how not to look like a geek while wearing my headphones with mic attached :) Perhaps it's a lost cause?