Yes! Finally it has arrived in some shape or form.
Since my conversion to Apple from the dark overlord that is Microsoft I have missed programs such as Winamp, uTorrent and Google Talk. But Google Talk is now available to me on the Mac via on their recently released Gadgets.
So what does this gadget do? Here is the science from Google Talkabout..
We know a lot of people love being able to chat with their friends in Gmail Chat, so we created the Talk Gadget to offer that experience in other places, starting with the Google Personalized Homepage. You’ll also find all your Gmail and Google Talk contacts organized for you in the Talk Gadget. And just like with Gmail Chat, you don’t have to download and install software to use it. One thing we really like is that it looks and feels the same on a Linux desktop as on a Windows laptop, and it also works on Macs. No matter where you go, all you have to do is login to your Google account, and there it is.
That’s all well and good but I’m sure you want to know how to embed Google Talk’s IM service into Firefox as demonstrated below? Of course you do. You’d be mad not to!
Chris sent me on a link to the original blog post about his but you need to do it slightly different in order to get it working for Firefox running on Apple. Right click on the following link - http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client - and select the option to ‘bookmark this link’. Once you have done that, go to View - Sidebar - Bookmarks. When you bookmarks load up in your sidebar you should see the recently added talkgadget link. Simply right click on this and go to properties and select the option to load this bookmark in the sidebar. Bobs your uncle!
Now all you have to do is to add a shortcut on your bookmarks tab and you have embedded Google Talk within your browser. If you are looking for a more desktop approach to Google Talk on the Mac then Adium is what you are after. Enjoy
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25 responses so far ↓
1 Niall // Mar 26, 2007 at 1:30 pm
You ever tried Adiumx? It’s a open source multi-protocol client for the Mac. Used it when I was trying out a mac-mini last year and it happily works with Google talk, MSN, ICQ and AIM.
2 Niall // Mar 26, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Sorry, should have read your post properly
3 Cormac Moylan // Mar 26, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Yeah, it’s a cute little app. When he swings those little duck arms like crazy you know he has some good news for you!
I’ve being poking about Adium for a while trying to turn off the alert sounds but I can’t find the off button. It’s annoying hearing people logging in/off when you’re watching a movie.
Did you ever tackle that issue?
4 Niall // Mar 26, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I didn’t have sound plugged into the mini, so I never actually noticed
Even while playing with the mini, I still had a proper Ubuntu desktop next to it so that I could get proper work done!
Seemingly you can set it to mute while away though.
5 Cormac Moylan // Mar 26, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Gah!
I refused for so long to Google this issue. I expect simple things to just work and it actually bothers me a bit when nonsense like this takes place. I guess I have no alternative but to look into muting Adium via Google search…
mm, it actually seems like the creators behind Adium are making life hard, i found a potential resolution - http://trac.adiumx.com/wiki/MutingSounds - I’ll check later on this evening if it works.
Thanks for your help Niall.
6 Niall // Mar 26, 2007 at 2:07 pm
It seems very complicated for what should be a fairly simple task.
On a separate note, the “Great Videos” ad underneath the comments now is a lot better than the bloody faced poker one that was there
7 Cormac Moylan // Mar 26, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I hate that image, it’s dirty out. I have no control over which one appears. I’m going to dump that format, it’s far too tacky.
8 Tim // Apr 5, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Do you know if it will handle attachments? I haven’t tested it out yet; just curious.
9 Cormac Moylan // Apr 5, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Hi Tim, you can’t transfer files. There is an option in there for Talk, as you can see from the screenshot above but the link isn’t active. Hopefully they will introduce the VoIP function in the near future.
The API is flash based btw.
Cormac
10 Tim // Apr 5, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Cormac,
Cheers for the quick reply! I had our geek in residence take a look too and he confirmed it’s in Flex.
Tim
11 Syd // Nov 18, 2007 at 4:25 am
Hi Cormac, ive put the gtalk application but i cant make a call from it.
12 Cormac Moylan // Nov 18, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Mmm, not sure what you mean Syd. You might be a better response if you try a Google forum such as Google Community > http://www.googlecommunity.com/
13 azureone // Dec 4, 2007 at 2:32 pm
did you solve your adium sound issue? if not, then here is the solution: go to adium preferences, select events and then for each of the events choose each event then edit and select an option that does not involve a sound. This includes sending and receiving messages. Adium is great - good luck!
14 Cormac Moylan // Dec 5, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Yeah, I got it working in the end. Cheers.
15 abinav // Jan 19, 2008 at 10:12 am
this works good but how do i login using a different username?
16 Cormac Moylan // Jan 21, 2008 at 12:39 pm
mmm, good point.
There doesn’t seem to be a logout link at all.
17 pam // Mar 12, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I’ve recently discovered that I can send messages to my friends on Adium, but when my friends write back, I am not getting any of their replies. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling Adium to no avail. Its frustrating, can someone help me out? Thanks in advance.
18 tyson // May 17, 2008 at 9:20 am
thanks for this, i hate having to run parallels to run simple things like google talk.
19 flexy stu // Jun 8, 2008 at 9:06 pm
i tried to download googletalk for mac but im having problems.
any one have a download link ?
20 Cormac Moylan // Jun 8, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Stu, where did you download the application from? Google Talk isn’t available as a direct download for Mac. If you downloaded a .exe and tried to install that, it won’t work.
21 jose // Jul 18, 2008 at 1:13 pm
got any idea…..how to make this work on safari????same thing dosent seem to work there….??!!!
22 Cormac Moylan // Jul 18, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Josh, what is your exact problem?
I have the flash google talk application open in one of my tabs at the moment without any issues. Obviously Safari doesn’t handle bookmarks the same way as Firefox so it can’t replicate the behaviour that I posted about in my blog post.
You can however open up http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client in a new window and resize it so that it appears as a tiny app on your desktop.
Or you can add Google Talk as an application to your iGoogle page and have that tab always open in your browser.
23 Cormac Moylan // Jul 18, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Or (again) just get Adium.
24 ggin // Sep 1, 2008 at 2:17 pm
i cant open gmail in my macbook…wat shud i do?
25 Cormac Moylan // Sep 1, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Be a bit more descriptive of your problem and then reset your browser.
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