You’re looking to make a phone call, say to a friend in England from your home base in the US.  You don’t pick up the phone, do you?  Heavens no!  The phone is for animals!  If you’re smart, you simply fire up Skype and have them do likewise, then talk to your heart’s content.  Unfortunately, you probably haven’t been able to do that over the last day or so, because Skype hasn’t been working.  A major network connection failure has knocked Luxembourg-based Skype offline for over a day.

“Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype — we’re investigating, and we’re sorry for the disruption to your conversations,” said a Skype spokesperson via Skype’s Twitter account.  “Our engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal — thanks for your continued patience.”  In a later blog post, Skype clarified the problem, which was first noticed when a large number of users dropped off the site.  “Skype isn’t a network like a conventional phone or IM network — instead, it relies on millions of individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running.  Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline.”

According to the last update to the Skype Twitter page, everything is coming back online, though there are still problems.  Here’s hoping it’s back online soon, as I know a lot of folks who depend on Skype for communicating with family and friends internationally, making podcasts, and other very important things for where Google Voice is not an option.

Tags: Skype, eBay, Skype offline, Skype has gone offline, telephony, computer calling service Skype offline, voice chatting service Skype offline, network connection failure, Luxembourg, Skype knocked offline, Skype disabled by network connection failures, Skype users unable to connect

“Nothing makes me prouder than coming home with six Grammys, then coming to the BRITs and winning album of the year.  I’m so proud to be British and to be flying the flag and I’m so proud to be in the room with all of you,” said Adele. Then presenter James Corden stepped in, interrupting [...]

Forget about Moneyball, the game-changing baseball philosophy that values getting men on base over defensive metrics, speed, body type, or other traditional tools lusted over by scouts.  The Oakland A’s are going to experience first hand the power of Mannyball.  Manny Ramirez, the long-haired slugger last seen with the Tampa Bay Rays last season before [...]

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent and a time in which members of the Catholic Church give up the things they enjoy, such as meat on Friday, to prove their devotion to God.  But that’s tomorrow.  Tonight?  Ahh, tonight is the night to drink it up, party like crazy, and have one [...]

Saturday Night Live cleverly made its barbed points about the racism surrounding the coverage of the NBA’s newest star. The meteoric rise in popularity of second-year NBA player Jeremy Lin has created a buzz in his Knicks’ city of New York and around the world. As only the fourth Asian-American to play in the history [...]

In a scene straight out of the Old West, the Glenn M. Anderson Federal Building’s seventh floor was the scene of a shootout.  No, a rogue nut didn’t get through security and it wasn’t an act of terrorism.  One federal agent shot another federal agent, then was subsequently killed by a third federal agent in [...]

Once you start smoking, it’s very difficult to quit.  A few cigarettes a day can quickly become a dangerous habit, so it’s best to never start.  However, once you do start, quitting aids like nicotine gum and those new electronic cigarettes can help.  Electronic cigarettes are those little cigarette-shaped things with the light in one [...]

When you operate a restaurant in which people over 350 pounds eat free, this kind of thing is going to happen.  At the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Triple Bypass Burger nearly lived up to its name one Saturday night.  A 40-year-old man walks into the Heart Attack Grill, orders a Triple [...]