Switch to Google Talk

    Once upon a time in my blog I wrote a short article about the painless transition to Google Talk. The article turned out to be quite useful and helped many of my friends switch to Google Talk. I spread it here. I hope she helps someone.

    I believe that Google Talk is now the most promising IM technology. To all my friends and acquaintances, I now strongly recommend connecting to Google Talk too. In any case, it is much easier to find me there. I may not be in ICQ, it doesn’t always work for me now, but I am always in GTalk when I'm online. The inertia of thinking makes some people think that Google Talk is difficult. Many do not want to leave the buggy, but native ICQ. All this prompted me to write some kind of instruction for beginners on a simple transition to GTalk. But first, the benefits of technology.

    Why go to Google Talk at all?

    Over the past years, ICQ has gained a lot of flaws:

    • Recently, ICQ has been extremely unstable due to work on the server.
    • ICQ protocol closed. In addition, AOL has a bad habit of constantly changing this protocol. I think everyone periodically faces the need to download the latest version of their client due to the next protocol changes.
    • Sometimes there are glitches in the transmission of messages between various ASEC clients.
    • Advertising in the "native" client.

    Benefits of Google Talk:

    • GTalk is based on open source Jabber technology. This allows you to use both the native client and any third-party jabber client.
    • Stability. This is Google. Redundant reminders of how developed this company is.
    • When registering with GMail , a GTalk account is automatically created along with the mailbox. I don’t think that anyone else needs to talk about GMail, very many people use this service.
    • Storage of correspondence history on the server. This is a very convenient feature. All correspondence is available from your Gmail account, there is no dependence on IM clients, your operating system or location. For example, I can communicate at work and at home, but I have a single history of correspondence.
    • GTalk contacts synchronization with GMail address book.
    • The ability to connect transports for any third-party protocols (ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo), also with the storage of correspondence history on the server.

    You can read more about GTalk here .

    I understand that few people will want to completely abandon ICQ now. But this is not necessary. I will try to describe how you can seamlessly switch to GTalk without abandoning ICQ. As I said, in order to connect to GTalk, just register a box on GMail . But when setting up the client, you can do three ways, depending on personal preferences.

    Method 1. Using your native client.

    If you don’t want to give up your favorite ICQ client, you can simply download the GTalk client from here.. And just use it separately, paired with an ICQ client. In this case, there is also the possibility of using voice conversations (similar to Skype). Alternatively, you can use the web client. Read more about the GTalk client here .

    Method 2. Multiprotocol clients Multiprotocol clients

    can be used. For example, Miranda , SIM , Kopete , Pidgin , etc. I will not dwell on this in detail. Users of these customers already know what needs to be done to simply add a new account. ;-) The disadvantage of this approach is that the ICQ message history will not be stored on the GMail server.

    Method 3. Using the Jabber client with connecting transports

    Here I will try to tell in more detail, because not all the nuances at first glance seem trivial. Since GTalk is based on Jabber technology, any Jabber client can be used. A great many have been written - Psi , Gajim , Tkabber , JAJC , etc.

    I like Psi the most, so I will talk about it as an example. For other clients, everything is configured in approximately the same way. Setting up an account in Psi is very trivial and described in detail here . I will focus on connecting ICQ-transport.

    Jabber is a distributed system. There are many servers on which there are transports to various IM-systems, including ICQ. You can connect transports from almost any other third-party Jabber server to your GTalk account. In the case of ICQ transport, there is one caveat. Unfortunately, not all transports support the correct pulling of nicknames. In case the nickname is not pulled, then the contact will only be visible as numbers. To fix this, it is necessary to

    false

    replace the line with the file "\ User \ PsiData \ profiles \ default \ config.xml" with

    true

    After that, the nicknames should be tightened normally. Now you can connect the transport. To do this, select “Service Discovery” and in the address bar enter the chosen Jabber-server. List of public servers see here.. A list of available services appears. If among them there is the necessary transport, it is necessary to register it.



    Transport will request a username, password and authorization. After its confirmation, asechny nicks should be pulled up. That's all. In the same way, you can connect any other transports (AIM, MSN, Yahoo). Thus, you can make several IM systems get along in one GTalk account. Moreover, all correspondence will be stored on the server. Conveniently.

    A spoon of tar

    When using transports, you can come across some difficulties. Not all foreign servers work correctly with the Cyrillic alphabet. Therefore, I recommend using a server in the .ru zone. But they sometimes have stability issues. However, they are not so frequent. And in general, this does not stop real geeks, right? ;-) Centralized storage of correspondence from all IM-systems is worth it. In addition, no one canceled the first two of the methods I described, for those who do not want to bother with transports at all. The technology itself is very promising and the fact that Google is actively developing it gives confidence that GTalk will gain popularity. This is already happening. Google Mail related

    links

    : http://www.gmail.com/
    Download GTalk Client:http://www.google.com/talk/intl/en/
    About Google Talk: http://www.google.com/talk/intl/en/about.html
    Setting up Google Talk: http: // www. google.com/talk/intl/en/start.html
    Psi Homepage: http://psi-im.org/
    Psi Setup for GTalk: http://www.google.com/support/talk/bin/answer.py ? answer = 24074
    List of Jabber public servers: http://www.jabber.org/user/publicservers.shtml

    Hope this little article is helpful to someone.

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