When I was writing the PHP script to import all my old blog posts into wordpress I was using the Abyss web server on my windows box (easier to set up php5 and html tidy than on Linux) I was confused as to why I couldn’t use port 80 to run the server on.

I didn’t have Apache or anything like it installed. With a bit of sleuth work I figured out that it was actually Skype that had stolen/hijacked port 80.

netstat -aon

There was no where to change the port it used in Skype preferences. I shutdown skype, started Abyss and restarted Skype and found that it chose another port. All things went well from then on but it was surprising that Skype chose port 80.

On that note, I was talking to one of the guys in the offices below ours, who does some VOIP work. He told me that the Skype protocol was not a standard protocol but a proprietary one. I was a bit miffed at this but then I came to the realisation that it doesn’t matter. It works and it works well. I now pa about 2p a minute to call my dad in Ireland, saving myself about 3p a minute.