Google Apps Hacks

141  - CHAT FROM IGOOGLE

HaCK 58:



You don’t need to leave your seat, or the Google home page,

to talk to others.

Google offers different tools for you to chat with your friends or colleagues. Among them are:

The Google Talk client, a desktop application. This requires you to download and install a le

from http://google.com/talk. At the time of this writing, it’s the only variant of Google Talk that

is voice-enabled, allows le transfers, and noties you when you receive new mail in Gmail.

The web-based Google Chat program, integrated with Gmail (http://gmail.com).

The Google Talk web page. You can launch a new chat window at http://google.com/talk.

The Google Talk web page gadget. Starting off at http://igoogle.com, you can add the gadget

to your personalized Google home page.

One of the easiest ways to chat is to use the standalone web version of Google Talk, either running

in its own window or as a gadget. To add the gadget, click the “Add stuff” link at the top of iGoogle.

Search for “Google Talk” and choose the ofcial Google Talk gadget (it will say “By Google”). Click

“Add it now” and your iGoogle page now contains an instant messenger, as shown in Figure 6-3.

To get started, simply enter your friend’s Gmail address into the top box. They may not appear in

the list until they’ve conrmed you as a contact. Chatting is now as easy as typing something and ...