Voip-News had a column yesterday on how to best use your personal Skype communication software. For you big Skype fans in the crowd, be prepared for a wealth of great users tips. I'm part of a Skype "swarm" with about forty or so other people. The experience is a remarkable one for a host of reasons. The experience is like working in a small office with a bunch of really smart people. Great ideas come bundled with small-talk.

Here are my five favourite ways to improve the Skype experience:

1 Call Forwarding
Whether you've set your Skype account up on your home or work computer, the fact is, you are occasionally going to get important calls when you aren't there. Thankfully, you can simply forward those calls to another Skype account or even a cell phone or land line. That way, even if your computer at work is shut down, as soon as a call comes in to your Skype account, the call will immediately ring on your cell phone, your home computer and your home phone line, meaning that no matter where you are you'll be sure to get it.
To forward a call click on the "Tools" menu and select "Options." From there set the forwarding number in the "Call Forwarding & Voicemail" section.

2 Providing Customer Support
Got a small business online? Want to offer some customer support without spending a fortune on telephony costs? Skype's graphical click-to-call SkypeMe buttons are ideal for this. Create your SkypeMe button (free account needed) and embed the code in your website, weblog, template, email, or wherever you want it to appear. When someone views your web page (or email message), the button will indicate whether you are online and accepting Skye calls, busy, or offline. If you're on the go and want to receive calls, just leave your Skype client running and set call forwarding (see above).

3 Using Skype to Sell your Services
You've got information that other people can use, and with the Bitwine Skype add-on you'll be able to leverage that information into an income stream. Whether you're a lawyer, a mechanic, or a talented collector, there are people willing to pay for the information you have, and using Bitwine makes selling that information easy. Through Bitwine, you set up your hourly rate, then customers approach you about the topic they would like to discuss, you set up a meeting time, and at the end of the meeting Bitwine tallies up the time and will even coordinate payment via PayPal through another add-on, Bitwine extra.

4 Enhanced Voicemail
If you use your Skype phone for more than just the occasional long-distance call, you should enhance your voicemail setup beyond the basic Skype standard. Pamela offers (automatic) call recording, an answering machine for voice and video, automated chat reply if you're away, Skype VoiceMail management, and email forwarding of audio files. In addition, Pamela will let you setup a separate greeting or voicemail message for different users, so that your business and personal calls won't hear the same message. And best of all, Pamela allows for remote control, meaning that if you forget to change one of the voicemail settings before you go on vacation, you can make the changes via any computer anywhere.

5 Keep Up With New Music
If you constantly find yourself wondering why everyone else's iPod seems to have better music than yours, maybe its time to start branching out and discovering new music. Last.fm, a Skype add-on provides you with an easy forum to share your own musical preferences and listen to what other people like. With this add-on, you can browse through other Skype and Last.fm user's music collections and listen in. While you're listening, information about the song and artist you're listening to is displayed and you're given the ability to find similar titles.

Setup is really simple, you just need to download the Last.fm extra, sign up for a free account at Last.fm and there download the Last.fm software. For those of you that are Mac users, Last.fm will still work as a Skype add-on, the only difference is that you will need to download the iScrobbler extra to make Last.fm Mac compatible.