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Thursday, May 04, 2006The team at Google who masterminded the Internet giant's fresh new take on instant messaging programs runs a blog about the program. The Google Talk Blog is updated regularly with tips, hints, new features and much more. Google Talk came out several months ago and its popularity has exploded across the Internet around the world. All these aspects are put into this extremely easy to use program that can be downloaded for free from the main Google Talk site To launch this simply click on your desktop or a the envelope symbol of Google Talk will appear in the bottom right-hand corner of your desktop. Gmail users have all the names from their email, everyone they have ever emailed with automatically loaded onto the clean white list that makes up the Google Talk box. As the majority of users will have a small sea of names, to zero in on specific people swimming around, you use a search box. Just the same as in Gmail, you type in keywords or the first few letters of the person's first name and their name instantly migrates to the top of the list. For those who have microphones attatched to their PC, a green call button will display on the right-hand side of the talk window. Flip your speakers on and click this. The sound of a phone ringing will resound, just as with anwsering a phone the user on the other end picks up by clicking on a red button that is fired at them to accept the call. They can then talk to you for as long as you wish for free, and if you both have mikes then it's made that much more enjoyable. The add pazazz to your account, just added you can know tint the colour of your talk boxes, main box and import online pictures or digital files from your computer. Though other instant message programs such as AOL and MSN have features to save and store conversations, Google as always does it differently and is one step ahead of the rest. All conversations are automatically saved in your Gmail account. A new link called Chat can be found on the top left-hand side of your inbox. Clicking on this pulls up all the conversations that you have ever had, their length listed and who it was listed along the bar, just as if it was a traditional email. Google Talk is an excellent program that I have greatly enjoyed talking to those across North America and across the globe on over the past couple months. Google Talk is still in beta, and as such Google is taking suggestions to make the program better and better for all. After brainstorming different ways and what was working and what was not over in California the software egineers and product designers came up with a suggestion site .On it you can click through different boxes, highlighting what your comment is. You can them use a email form at the bottom to send your inquiry.On the Google Talk site recently I came across a cool post the editor of the blog posted. A funky story on how Google Talk let her realize her dream of going to Fiji! Her South Pacific vacation was nearly cancelled. Check it out!  Walking the Talk Did you know that some airlines still issue paper tickets? Well, they do, and I received some in the mail about two months ago after I planned a trip to Fiji. Now, fast-forward to this morning, one day before departing, when I realized my ticket was nowhere to be found... Thinking this was no big deal, I dialed the airline and smiled to myself when the operator answered the phone with a cheerful "Bula!" I politely explained my situation, and was horrified to hear that, because my flight was set to depart less than three days from today, the minimum fee to replace the ticket would be over $1000 USD. Wait, I thought the man said, 'Bula,' not 'Moola! I then called the booking agency since I have (or had!) a multi-carrier ticket, and was given more bad news: Travel Agent: "Ms. Lane, we're sorry, but you'll have to buy a whole new ticket." Me: not worth repeating :o) Travel Agent: "Yes, we understand that you have a confirmation number and itinerary, but..." Try telling someone that works for a tech company that a new ticket is necessary, when the whole transaction took place online! How could this be? And then the tears came. Lots of them. Spending an additional $1K+ is a big price to pay for such a little mistake. I held the phone line, blotting mascara from my eyes with a Kleenex, and waiting for the travel agent to return so we could book another ticket. I signed in to Google Talk to see if anyone was online to help me curse the travel gods! And then my other line began to ring. I wasn't able to answer since I was still on hold. Then it rang again. Finally, my computer started ringing – it was my mom on Google Talk. My mom! She'd found my tickets, and couldn't get through on the phone to tell me!!! Thank goodness for Google Talk without it, I might not have had two seats to Fiji ! Heather Lane Editor Teague Neal blogged on 8:45 PM
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Teague Neal |