341–350 of 682 posts
Will we ever have communication tools more durable and predictable (with known and managed failure modes and privacy expectations) than paper mail? Standardised protocol? independent of any single entity or subscription? readable without special technology? universal service infrastructure?
Absolutely wild that the entire world got locked inside their homes and everybody became a remote worker and that wasn't enough for Skype or Teams to get used. Embarrassing! and this is the end result.
The desktop app ran very poorly on macs, and left everyone pretty much blaming it whenever their Mac acted up.
I only used the website version myself, and it was fine, so I'm assuming there was just some hanky programming in an election wrapper that needed optimizing.
Skype is the epitome of technical debt. Millions of lines of code for a service that isn't technically difficult to provide anymore. When I was at Microsoft, I was told working on Skype was about as popular as being sent to a gulag. The value of the brand is so strong, I am surprised they never launched a "2.0" version built from scratch and without all the vestigial tails.
> I am surprised they never launched a "2.0" version built from scratch and without all the vestigial tails. I'm surprised that you are surprised! Rewriting a million-lines-of-code project from scratch without the stupid bits is easy. Getting the equivalent of the working bits, instead... Joel expressed this concept quite well already 25 years ago: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
Yes, it's absolutely true getting the working bits correct is hard, by consigning yourself to a slow death doesn't seem like much of an improvement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you know how providers detect your country when using wifi calling? Mine says it's only valid while you are within the country, wonder if VPN would work around it.
No idea, but Tello always worked outside of the U.S - Lithuania in my case. I guess, provider will always consider your country where the phone number is located. Funny thing, while I'm roaming, my IP address will always be Lithuanian. It does not matter where the world I'm currently staying.
Damn, this is the primary way I talk to my parents and my grandmother. Genuine question, what do people here recommend as a replacement for non-technical people? I'll need to walk my grandmother through the process of setting something remotely. No one in my family but me has iPhones, so I think Facetime is out, and I'd need something that can run on a computer. I suppose I'll have to talk my parents into installing…
Wouldn't need to set up anything. And works as reliably as anything I've seen.
EDIT: Signal is a very HN recommendation for drop dead simplicity. Syncing keys?
Damn, this is the primary way I talk to my parents and my grandmother. Genuine question, what do people here recommend as a replacement for non-technical people? I'll need to walk my grandmother through the process of setting something remotely. No one in my family but me has iPhones, so I think Facetime is out, and I'd need something that can run on a computer. I suppose I'll have to talk my parents into installing…
So FaceTime lets you make a link that you can give to someone with a web browser and they can use it to reach you, and it works pretty well. You might just try it.
> I suppose I'll have to talk my parents into installing Signal desktop, but I was kind of hoping for something that gave you the "user is online" status thing like Skype does.
That's probably the biggest limitation: It's a webpage for calling you (the person with the iPhone), not a page for you to call them. If you want them to open a app/page when they are available, I think Messenger is best in terms of features and usability.
If your parents/grandmother aren't already on WhatsApp I don't think you should link their phone number (which might be linked to their banking etc) with a public chat system because there are a _lot_ of online scams targeting the elderly through WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and linking to the mobile number associated with other (higher value) services. It is very easy to lock-down Messenger so nobody who isn't already a friend can't target them.
Damn, this is the primary way I talk to my parents and my grandmother. Genuine question, what do people here recommend as a replacement for non-technical people? I'll need to walk my grandmother through the process of setting something remotely. No one in my family but me has iPhones, so I think Facetime is out, and I'd need something that can run on a computer. I suppose I'll have to talk my parents into installing…
Google Duo (might be lumped in with Meet now) worked well for me when I was on Android and everyone around be was iOS. It's cross platform and worked out of the box. Discord probably has a bit more going on since it also has a community focus, but it may be worth looking into since it's a platform that won't be going away anytime soon. It also works from the browser if having them download something is a headache.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Telegram requires permission to view all your contacts on iOS :) So I refuse to use it now.
That’s fair, but almost every messaging app does this (WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, etc.). The question is: do you trust Telegram more or less than the alternatives? Personally, I see it as the lesser evil compared to some big tech options.
iMessage sort of does, but that's only because it's more a part of the OS, which already has your contacts anyway.
Is there any good EU alternative for this specifically ?