Planning on making some Skype video calls today to talk with your buddies about the new Apple products? Before you hit the dial button, be sure to get the update to Skype 5.6. The update became available yesterday and adds some Lion-friendly features as well as fixes to a few issues.

Beom Soo Park at the Skype Garage blog outlined the changes. First, Skype 5.6 automatically updates to newer versions when critical or minor updates become available. The group video calling UI has been improved, allowing you to switch between dynamic mode (person who is speaking appears at the top of the screen) and non-dynamic mode when making calls with 5 or more participants.

OS X Lion users can rejoice, as Skype 5.6 also adds full screen mode and "eliminates distractions from the Dock and Menu bars." Skype users now have the ability to delete messages within a conversation, and remove conversations from the sidebar and history. Finally, there's now a way to disable audio gain control from the Skype preferences. This can reduce background noise during conference calls.

To install version 5.6, just check under Skype > Check for Updates, or download the installer here.