Arvindra and Clemens both blogged “The Nerd, the Suit and the Fortune Teller”, a hilarious piece of theater performed at TechEd Amsterdam a few weeks ago. Clemens plays the nerd, Rafal Lukawiecki the suit and Pat Helland the fortune teller. We’ve got the video up on the web, you can access it from Pat’s site. Between this and Mr. CIO Guy, sounds like TechEd Amsterdam was a blast. Mental note: next year, make it to Europe for TechEd!

I need to start using more communication tools on the internet. Yesterday I researched Vonage and downloaded Skype. Given how much I use my mobile phone, I don’t think I need to spend so much on my home phone system. Vonage is much cheaper than my current phone provider – only $30 a month – which includes unlimited calling in the US. It’s got neat features like virtual numbers, so multiple numbers in different area codes all point to the same phone. And while it provides unlimited US calling, the phone doesn’t have to be in the US. So if my brother-in-law in Germany got it, he could call all his family in the US for free. A teammate has it, and said it works pretty well. Anyone else out there using it? If I got it, I’d like to use it with the existing phone wiring in the house. My cable box has to dial up to download program listings. I think it would be funny to use an analog model over the broadband connection.

As for Skype, lots of people have blogged that, so I won’t bother to here, except to point out that Skype 1.0 is now available (released today). Feel free to skype me, though it doesn’t appear to work through the corporate firewall.

Update: I should have realized, but there are other choices in the internet telephone business. Lingo caught my eye – only $20 a month for unlimited calling to the US, Canada and Western Europe (which includes Germany where my afore-mentioned brother-in-law lives). Anyone on Lingo? Also, I’m not sure why, but you can only call landlines in Europe as part of the unlimited calling plan. I also noticed that calling mobile phones in Europe on Vonage is more expensive. Why is that?