His tip is specific to MacBook Pro users with Skype, but it can be easily adapted to just about any laptop and audio conferencing service. The trick is to simply change the speaker balance so that the audio comes out as far away from the mic as possible:

To all you mac book pro users who use skype (and soon, Messenger) to make calls…

The microphone is located under the left speaker grille, and can contribute to horrible feedback during a call (the person on the other side hears himself coming out of the speaker on your machine, fedback into your mic).

I changed my speaker balance so that output was all to the right speaker, and the effect was fantastic. Conversations are in mono, but you can have a perfect conversation without requiring a headset.

Here’s how to change the speaker balance on both Mac and Windows:

Mac

1. In your Apple Menu, go to System Preferences and choose Sound.

2. Select the Output tab.

3. For Balance, move the slider all the way to the right if your mic is on the left. If your mic is on the right, move the slider to the left.

Windows

1. Double-click the speak icon on the bottom-right of the Windows Start Bar.

2. In the window that appears, move the Master Volume slider all the way to the right if your mic is on the left. If your mic is on the right, move the slider to the left.

Once you’ve adjusted your speaker output, just start an audio chat with your favorite buddy and enjoy.

Thanks goes to Matt Rolandson at MetaDesign, for sending this my way.

In our debut post, we recommended grouping your buddies by how often you chat with them. Just split your buddies into three groups: Frequent, Occasional, and Rare.

Interaction designer Joshua Kaufman liked our idea but favors a better way. Instead of frequency, Joshua divides his buddies by “importance,” using groups labeled Alpha, Beta and Gamma:

It’s not about how frequently you talk to people; it’s about how important they are to you right now. If someone is important to you, you’re often likely to talk to them frequently. Vice versa if they’re not important to you. But sometimes there’s someone who I don’t talk to frequently who suddenly becomes more important, for example, because I’m working with them on a project. In this case, moving them to a group called Frequent doesn’t make much sense. Instead, I move them to a group called Alpha ” as in –”most important–.

Kudos to Joshua for this smart and clever buddy list hack. Also, check out his tips for taming email and trimming your RSS feeds

So I’m curious, how do you organize your buddy list?

At first, I grouped names according to the nature of the relationship, ie. Friends, Family, Work, Origami partners, etc. My new scheme groups people according to how frequently I talk to them.

The people I talk to every day are in a group called Frequent. People I talk to some of the time are in Occasional. Finally, those I hardly talk to are placed into Rare. Most chat clients will sort group names alphabetically, so the people you talk to most will always be at the top.

If you don’t like these group names and want to use your own custom names, you can still get it to sort correctly by including numbers before the names. For example:

1. Often
2. Sometimes
3. As If

In iChat, I also have the Offline group option turned on. This puts all the offline people into a common group at the bottom of the list, making your other groups nice and succinct. To do this go to View and select Use Offline Group.

Periodically, I revisit the Occasional and Rare groups to prune away any buddies I don’t talk to anymore for some reason or other.

This method of organizing buddies keeps down the number of arbitrary groups, and avoids the moral dilemna of deciding who is more important than others. For example, I no longer debate whether or not someone is a “friend” or just an “acquaintance.”