The computer helper: Free phone calls over the Internet?

Q: I've heard about free phone calls through the Internet. I live in India and would like to call a friend in the United States with my PC. How do I do this?

A: Free long-distance phone calls are indeed a reality for many with a PC and a decent Internet connection these days. Since voice can be digitised and sent over the Internet just like files and e- mail can, experts expect that it's only a matter of time before the Internet is used regularly to place phone calls.

What's even more exciting is that if you have the right equipment and software, the recipient of a phone call you place does not even have to own a PC. You can place a call over the Internet from your computer to another person's standard telephone. Assuming you have a good connection, the person who receives your call may not be able to tell that you're calling over the Internet, using your PC. Those who live in the United States and Canada can take advantage of this so-called PC-to-phone technology now by downloading programs such as Microsoft's Messenger from //messenger.msn.com (http://messenger.msn.com) or Net2Phone from www.net2phone.com. With either program, you can place a call from anywhere in the United States or Canada to anyone else in the United States or Canada for free. Microsoft plans to provide calling capability to and from more countries in a future release. With Net2Phone, you can place free PC- to-PC calls anywhere in the world now. So how do you equip your PC for placing phone calls over the Internet? In addition to the PC itself, you need a good-quality sound card, a headset microphone that plugs into the sound card, and as fast an Internet connection as you can get. You can place PC-to-phone and PC-to-PC calls with a standard analogue 56k modem, but the quality of your calls will improve dramatically if you have a cable, ISDN, or digital subscriber line (DSL) hook-up.

You may also want to experiment with free "voice chats" over the Internet. Excite has one of the most popular free voice chat services, at www.excite.com/communities/chat/voicechat. You can set up a voice chat between two people or more - providing you with a conference call capability that would, for instance, permit you to chat with several of your friends or relatives at the same time. All you need for a voice chat is an Internet connection, a sound card, and a headset microphone. With voice chatting, you agree on a time with the chat participants. Everyone logs on to the site, enters the private chat area, and begins talking. It's that simple. Q: Help! I own a PC and am currently running Windows 98. My problem started after I downloaded a trial version of the program Desktop Surveillance. The trial period is over, and now every time I start my PC, a message informs me that the trial period has ended and that if I want to continue using the program, I must purchase it. How can I get rid of this message? Is there something in the startup folder?

A: It's true that some shareware programs remind you to purchase a license by inserting a simple program in the Windows startup folder. You can see what's in the startup folder by clicking the Windows Start button in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, choosing Programs, and then clicking Startup. When you do, you'll see a fly- out menu that shows you what's in the Startup folder. If you see a "reminder" program there - or anything that looks like it might belong to the program in question - you should be able to right-click that program and select Delete from the resulting pop- up menu. The item will then be removed. But most shareware programs - which are application that allow you to try them out before purchasing them - have far more sophisticated methods of reminding you to pay the license fee once the trial period has ended. Truly, unless you resort to illegally "cracking" the program, the only way to get rid of these "nag" screens is to pay the fee. The good thing about shareware is that it's quite often reasonably priced, and if you pay the fee you're likely to get support and upgrades. ^

Please do remember that real people work long hours to bring software to the market. The creation of software is no easy task. So even though it's sometimes possible to bypass the payment reminder screens that you'll see with shareware applications, doing so means, in essence, that you're engaging in behaviour that you probably would not appreciate if you were a software developer yourself. If you have a computer question? Send it via email to the computer helper at jayd@csi.com (mailto:jayd@csi.com).

(dpa)