Skype has been beautifully branded, and now many of us have learned to talk over the net, it wants to direct us to its real profit centre: making web calls to normal phones.

There's no doubt Skype is the leader among Voip (voice over internet protocol) providers, which allow you to speak over the web. With it, you and anyone else, anywhere in the world, with a headset, a microphone and, preferably, a broadband internet connection can talk to each other at no cost if they also have Skype - well, apart from any internet connection charges that is.