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I always seem to be looking for my Blackberry to be doing more, there are many times when I look at it and think, what can we do right now I’m bored, I check my apps, read my Viigo, check my facebook….but I need more. I find myself constantly downloading every new app I can get my hands on, admittedly I am not much of a gamer….mainly because I suck at it, but I would imagine that gaming could cure a lot of my want for wanting more to do on my Blackberry. Most of the times I also search for ways to be more productive or for ways to make my device work better. Currently I use Twitter a lot ( you can hook up with me on twitter, look for Hollywoord42), if you don’t already know Twitter gives you three ways to interact 1. IM (Gtalk, Live journal, jaber) 2. through text, sms 3. Web Only. Twitterberry uses the Text Sms option. But beacuse I have a corporate plan on my berry, it doesn’t have much text sms leeway, thus I am trying the IM approach, and because I dont have many people on Gtalk it seemed kind of useless getting Gtalk all hooked up with an accounts and so on. That was until I learned that Gtalk can actually be used to interact with all your other IM clients…Did you know this…I did not. But I found an article that shows you how to hook up Gtalk on your PC that will allow you to use Gtalk on your blackberry and have all your different friends IM’s on board. So with out further a due please read on and enjoy.

Thanks to Jeff over at Big Blue Ball for putting this article together. Hope you all enjoy………..Andrew

http://www.bigblueball.com/forums/general-other-im-news/33739-connect-google-talk-aim-msn-yahoo.html

Connect Google Talk to Aim, Msn, & Yahoo

Posted by Jeff on 01-22-2006, 11:34 PM

Google has announced plans to get Google Talk and AIM talking, but with a little elbow grease you can do that and more today.

Now that Google has opened up their Google Talk servers for federation with other Jabber servers, you can use Google Talk to connect to your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo or ICQ. Here’s how, step-by-step with screenshots.

First, download and install the free Jabber client called Psi. It’s a fine Jabber client, and you might want to keep it, but you won’t need to once you’ve set everything up. The Psi wiki has a great step-by-step for connecting to Google Talk. Follow their instructions and you’ll be able to see your Google Talk contacts.

Next, go to Service Discovery and browse the Jabber server ursine.ca and you’ll see the transports available.

Click on a transport and Psi will gather data.

Right-click on a transport to register. Registration involves entering your username and password for the given IM network. Once you do, Psi will connect to that network and retrieve your contacts. You can also add new contacts.

Once I had “registered” each of my IM accounts, I had a lot (hundreds?) of system messages.

Basically it asked me to confirm that I wanted to add each of these contacts. Once I did, they showed up in my Psi contact list.

Now exit Psi and fire-up Google Talk. You’ll have all your IM contacts right there on your Google Talk contact list.

Once you’ve done so, you can chat with your friends on AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN — all using Google Talk. You can also add contacts directly within Google Talk. Just use the format [screenname]@[transport.dns.name]. For example, to add my MSN screen name you would enter jeff@msn.ursine.ca

What’s the deal with ursine.ca? You can use any Jabber server you’d like — you’ll find a complete list here at Open Jabber Servers — ursine.ca was just the server I used.

This process works, although in my experience, the MSN transport has not been reliable. One of my friends reported an weird “echo” effect. Everything she typed was returned back to her as if from me (I saw none of her messages). I’ve also sent IMs to MSN contacts, only to have them immediately appear “offline.”

As with any of these kinds of hacks, your mileage may vary. But you’ve got to admit — it is very cool to be able to use Google Talk as a universal IM client.

Resources

• Download Psi - Configure for Google Talk
• Download Google Talk

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