This post has been contributed by O'Flaherty via CBN

Kevin and myself have been having fierce problems when talking to each other on Skype, yet these problems do not affect our Skype conversations with anyone else.

While talking today, Kevin pasted in part of an email, which a Skype tech support bod had sent him, about how to improve the quality of Skype.

Try out these 5 easy tips to improve your Skype experience:

1. In Skype, Go to Tools > Options > Connection. Select the option to use ports 80 and 443. In the "Incoming Connections" box you can chose any port between 1024 and 65535.

2. Reconfirm that your firewall is correctly configured. Follow the simple visual guide here:

http://www.skype.com/help/guides/firewalls/

3. Quit any file sharing applications or high-bandwidth usage applications.

4. For more detailed security setup on a network: http://www.skype.com/security/guide-for-network-admins.pdf

5. If these suggestions do not resolve improve cal quality, follow these steps:

    * Quit Skype

    * Locate the shared.xml file found in
C:\Documents and settings\Your Windows Username\Application data\Skype\shared.xml

    * Delete the file called shared.xml

    * Restart Skype ( shared.xml will be recreated )
Note: Showing hidden folders and files has to be turned on: please navigate to My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View. Once there, please make sure that the option "Show Hidden Files and Folders" is enabled.

5. Disable Quality of Service packet scheduling. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Network Connections.  Right click on the connection you are using. Select Properties. Untick the "QoS Packet Scheduler" option.

Hope these tips help you out.