Sick and tired of all that clicking and typing it takes to dial a number in Skype? Give your fingers a break with Dial Directly for Skype, a little utility that allows you to initiate Skype calls by simply pressing a combination of keys. But while it may save your fingers some effort--and may save you the embarrassment of a wrong number--Dial Directly may cost you some time.

Once Dial Directly is installed, you can use it to set a series of three hot keys (such as <Ctrl> +< 3> or + , for example) to dial phone numbers in Skype. These can be numbers you find on Web sites or in your contact manager, or just about anywhere. You can set it to dial a number that's been copied to your clipboard, or to prompt you to enter a number, or to redial the last number you've entered. If you want to call a number you find online, you have to copy and paste the number, click the hotkey combination, and Dial Directly will place the call, launching Skype if it's not already running.

While Dial Directly is designed to save you time, I found it a bit cumbersome. If I was going to take the time to copy a number and then click the necessary keys, wouldn't it just be easier to add the number to my Skype contact list, so I could call it with a single click in the future? And Skype already offers its own "Click to Call" plug in, which, when installed, highlights all numbers it identifies online, and allows you to place a Skype call with a single click.

Skype's Click to Call plug in is free, and much faster to use. While I was occasionally annoyed by the fact that it highlighted every single phone number it identified on the Web--causing me to accidentally place a few Skype calls I hadn't meant to--it was far superior to Dial Directly's solution, which was much slower to operate.

Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

--Liane Cassavoy