Make notifications of Skype messages more attention-grabbing

Question

We use Skype chat at work. I'm finding that I don't notice when people send a message to me. The only notification is a tiny little bouncing bubble in the tray. I have three monitors, and the tray is not even in my field of vision. I don't always have headphones on, so sound notification isn't reliable either.

Any other options?

Operating system is Windows XP.

Answer 1

I find that Growl integrates with Skype quite well. It pops up on your screen to let you know when certain activities occur. You can configure the size and duration of the popup so this might be what you're after.

For Windows: http://www.growlforwindows.com (further customization with http://www.skowler.com/)

For Mac OSX: http://growl.info/

Answer 2

Have a look at these two Skype Extras (at your own risk):

Extended Online Call for Skype / 1.1.0.1

Warns you extensively when your preferred contacts come online, even when you're not next to your computer.

And Contact Alarm / 1.0.1

Contact Alarm is a Skype plugin/extra which gives you full flexibility when it comes to your contacts' status notifications. In opposition to Skype's internal notification feature, Contact Alarm let's you define what notification (fading/static windows & audio/video & log-file) you want to receive when one of your contacts changes his/her online status.

This may be a third option:

http://traviantray.com/dnn/FAQ/SetupSkypenotifications/tabid/83/Default.aspx