The past few weeks have been challenging for me on a number of fronts. As far as challenges related to this posting go, I managed to drop my personal laptop while coming back from Ottawa last week. This caused my MacBook to start experiencing random issues-issues I hoped woud be fixed by hooking the drive up to a PC and running Spinrite on.

Unfortunately, Spinrite seemed to make the issue worse. Now the drive won't power up and operate without incessant clicking. Data recovery is all but impossible.

What does this have to do with VoIP? My main computer is now offline. Assuming it were my only computer, it would mean no Skype or other computer-based voice over IP services. I have others where I could conceivably run Skype, as well as using things like iSkoot on my Nokia phones. I could also run other VoIP related services on my mobile phone as well.

The point is, if you're looking to make cheap calls using some kind of VoIP service, make sure you have more than one way to do it. Relying on one service on one piece of hardware is a recipe for disaster.