How to Start a Business

I’ve blogged about Skype before (see link to my blog) and had an interesting conversation with an entrepreneur about his experience with Skype. I use Skype a great deal and have since I have been on my own now for about a year.  It’s cheap, easy, and a great addition to my phone setup.  One of the things I like about Skype is the ability to dial out of my Address Book.  Great functionality.  That is until today.

I recently had to redo my entire computer and int he process I put in a new hard drive and upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. (Quick aside: after a brief stint with Windows 7 I would say hands down that Mac’s operating system is superior). In the process upgrading my computer my Skype Dial Out of Address Book function stopped working. Unfortunately, no IT guy to talk to  so I googled: “Address book dial with Skype” I found a few helpful links. The most helpful link I found is a Macosxhints.com article form July 2006.  I immediately wrote it off because it was from July 2006.  I thought 3.5 years is past the statute of limitations on online blog help.  I was wrong.  It proved to be the easiest and quickest solution.

I’m blogging on it because I want to let people know that according to my own experience the directions work well (despite being from 2006).  We aren’t a Technology or Mac blog but when I come across helpful solutions I like to let our readers know as they or others may have similar problems that I encounter as I run my business.

So if you are having this problem:

• Go to this site: http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060718114236477
• Don’t worry about the code looking stuff at the top – you’ll just copy and paste that into AppleScript Editor.
• To open AppleScript Editor use the Spotlight and type it in
• Just paste the code into it
• Save it some place where you can find it
• Make sure to quit out of Address book before the next step
• You will move this script file into the Address Book Plug-ins folder found at the following Finder path
  • Users->yourusername ->Library -> Address Book Plug-ins
• Open Address book back up – your dial out of skype should now appear when you click the number

Another Link I came across is a thread on Skype’s board:  http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=436051;  the dates are more recent and thus I was able to validate that the 2006 blog post worked.  Someone poses a solution on switching to 64 big Snow Leopard and someone else poses a few files to download and place in the Library files.  I believe these are just the scripts.  The 64 bit thing gets a little complicated and their are warnings that basically told me it was over my head.

Hope this helps.  Also, if you have any helpful hints for computers, phones, or anything that may impact an Entrepreneurs world please feel free to post here or shoot us an email.  We exist to serve entrepreneurs and business owners.

Related posts:

1. Skype: All Entrepreneurs Must Use Skype
2. We need your help! Let us write a book about you!
3. Book Review: The Big Short
4. Book Proves Entrepreneurship is NOT Risky!
5. Entrepreneurs Using Macs: Finder Techniques Tools and Links

10 Comments

1.   Peter Parkes (Skype Blogger)   |  Tuesday, 12 January 2010 at 8:41 pm

   Thanks for flagging this – we’re aware of the problem and it should be fixed in a future release of Skype for Mac. Glad to hear you’ve found a suitable workaround in the meantime though

   
2.   Denny   |  Tuesday, 12 January 2010 at 9:55 pm

   Great post. I’m a mac dude but admit I have not used Skype yet. Do you know if businesspeople/entrepreneurs us skype much… or is this in the future?

   Thanks!

   Denny
   http://www.DeLeverMe.com
   @ Denny Marta

   
3.   Jan de Bloois   |  Sunday, 24 January 2010 at 2:45 pm

   Thank you very much! I was looking for a solution, and you see: I found this!
   After putting a larger HD in my iMac 17″ and upgrading from 10.4.11 to 10.6 I encountered this problem, not being able to call via Skype from Apples AdressBook. (why did they change that by the way?).
   (photo’s of my HD opeation on http://gallery.me.com/video_holiday#gallery )

   greetings from Holland.

   
4.   J.A. Watson   |  Monday, 25 January 2010 at 1:57 pm

   Has 3.5 years not been enough time for Skype to fix this problem, Mr. Parkes? This is one very small example of why one can not, and must not, depend on Skype for business functionality. Where were they when you needed them? Did you try submitting a “trouble ticket” through their web page? If so, have you even received an acknowledgement, much less an answer, in the two weeks since? Probably not – and you are just as likely to still be waiting for a reply in another 3.5 years.

   
5.   Peter Parkes (Skype Blogger)   |  Tuesday, 26 January 2010 at 9:08 am

   Jamie – the macosxhints article referred to actually dates back to before we had that feature built-in. It’s been built-in for quite some time now, and working just fine, but some people are having problems using it with Mac OS 10.6. We’re aware of this, and a fix is in the pipeline

   
6.   Cialis   |  Saturday, 06 March 2010 at 3:54 pm

   UveMwc Excellent article, I will take note. Many thanks for the story!

   
7.   Lisette Ijams   |  Saturday, 20 March 2010 at 8:22 am

   It’s really quite fun isn’t it? We’re finding out how the same we all are. Guess blogging shows we have a lot more in common than we ever thought we did.

   
8.   rogier   |  Thursday, 25 March 2010 at 2:08 am

   the simple solution has not to do with scripts but is:

   quit address book
   control-click address book in finder and select “get info”
   tick the 32-bit box and close to save
   restart address book
   fixed

   good luck
   rogier

   
9.   RTX Dualphone 3088 User   |  Thursday, 01 April 2010 at 10:02 am

   We’ve long been making use of my rtx dualphone 3088 for some time now and We have to state it truly is a rather sik piece of kit. see … this page

   
10.   Pascoe   |  Monday, 16 August 2010 at 12:19 pm

    Sweet! Works great! Thanks.