Belkin Skype handset - died and fixed (again!)

This is the third one of these handsets I've had and when they work they are great - Skype actually offers pretty darn good results - very little latency and surprisingly high vocal quality. Per Steve Gibson's suggestion I use a dedicated port for Skype (any port above 1024 will do), and open that port for UDP connections on my router. This eliminates the need for Skype Supernode support and seems to reduce latency. However - these handsets seems to develop a fault where when I connect my Skype phone to my wireless router it connects, however I receive a message telling me that the phone is unable to connect to the internet. When this happened again on the current handset I realised I was outside the 12 month window and so packed it away with a sigh. I checked their website for any firmware or suggestions but nothing. Now - three weeks later and I thought I'd take it around a couple of the root6 premises and see if it connected to any wireless APs there - it couldn't. As I was really packing it away I looked on Belkin again and guess what - well, see here, two firmware updates - the most recent saying it fixes this fault, and it did - hurrah!
One little aside - I'd never connected the handset to a Windows PC before but until I let Windows install the generic, USB driver for it the updater utility wouldn't see it.

Overpriced Apple stuff & unreliability

Wow - lovely bank holiday weekend but things went wrong! The battery on my MacBook died (just vanished - not seen under Vista or OS-X) - and guess what, a trip to the Apple Store revealed that it will take 'till Friday for a genius to see me (they drink the Kool Aid!) - in the meantime it's just shy of a hundred quid for a replacement battery. On the subject of the Genius Bar - How can someone in their mid-twenties be an expert in anything? Anyhow - I seemed to remember it being the same price for a replacement DC power supply. In fact, looking around I saw an Apple branded rucksack for a hundred quid, the cheapest iPod, and Joe found a set of headphones for (yes!), a ton. The Apple Store is like the Pound Store for wealthy people; ¨yes, ladies and gents, everything a hundred pounds (or multiples thereof)¨.
Also - my Belkin Skype handset stopped working and the good folks at Broadband Buyer did the usual reseller step-backwards and refused to be of any help further than giving me Belkin US's tech support number.
Then, after tidying out one of our attics and putting down a rug etc. so the kids can do Warhammer up there I fell out of the loft! I need a hot bath....

PC LINE PCL-100K Webcam

This is a Dixons/Currys brand cheap'n'cheerful webcam - just the thing for Skype etc. Not at all usable for anything approaching quaility capture but fine for use as a webcam. Now because it's a cheapie they don't bother to have downloadable drivers - I know, I mislaid the CD and searched for an hour online. I found lots of people saying ¨where can I find a driver...¨. Anyhow - I thought I'd stick it on my server - in case I loose the CD again!

http://crawley.slyip.com/blog/tech/docs/PCLine_PCL-100K_webcam/Driver/