Google just released a beta of Google Talk, Google’s new instant messaging service. If you are using anything besides Windows XP/2000, you can’t use Google’s official IM client that supports Voice chat. Fortunately, the service is based on the open-source Jabber/XMPP project - so there are plenty of alternative IM clients that you can use. On my Mac I added the service pretty easily following Google’s directions to both Adium and iChat. I did a search through my address book and added all my @gmail.com contacts to the contact list and fortunately one of my contacts was already playing with it also - Phillip Torrone from MAKE: Blog. So now that I had it set up on my computer, I quickly decided to try to figure out how to get it so I could access Google Talk on my Treo.

I did a search on the treo Addicts Software Store for jabber and came up with Causerie and IM+, unfortunately neither of these worked. I did a little more searching and found Chatopus. Since this program has SSL support, I figured it may work. After a bit of trial and error tinkering, I finally figured out how to get it to work. Here is the settings I used…

After installing Chatopus and firing it up for the first time you should start at an “Account Setup” screen. On the first screen it will ask for Account Name and Server Address. Put Google Talk for Account Name and gmail.com for Server Address.

Now click Next.

Next screen will have username and password fields. Put the first part of your gmail address in the Username field. So if your gmail address is john.doe@gmail.com, put john.doe in the Account Name field. Then type in your password. If you don’t have a gmail account, toss and email to me at cyberhomie [at] gmail.com and request an invite.

Hit Next then Next again. You should now be at a connection details screen. Leaver Resource Identifier alone, set Host to talk.google.com. Then check the Use Secure Connection (SSL) box, this should now change the Port Number to 5223 - if not change it to 5223. Leave Priority alone.

Click Next. You should now be at the last configuration screen. Although most other clients were set to not allow plain-text authentication, checking the Allow plain-text auth box was the only way I could get Chatopus to work. I left Send Keep-Alive and Server Type alone.

Click Done. Now you are all set. From there you can add and remove contacts, change status and chat with your new Google Talk contacts.

A downside that should be mentioned is that Chatopus wont run in background mode with Google Talk since Google Talk requires SSL.

I want to thank Phillip Torrone from MAKE: Blog for letting me pester him while testing this out. Also when linking to his site in this story, I noticed that Phillip had posted a couple articles on the Google Talk Windows IM Client and using Google Talk with iChat. Be sure to go check them out.

I typed this up at 3 in the morning so hopefully this made sense…

Technorati Tags: Google, Palm, Instant Messaging, Treo

1. Peterpalm » Tambien para Treos… Says:
   August 24th, 2005 at 5:04 pm

   […] Fuente: Treo Adicts Trackback · […]

2. Bill Petro Says:
   August 24th, 2005 at 5:53 pm

   Works great! Thanks.

3. JT Says:
   August 25th, 2005 at 10:12 am

   Worked here too. I had everything _except_ the plaintxt auth… Yay!

4. erica Says:
   August 30th, 2005 at 6:23 am

   Is it stable? I hate that another IM proggie I use on my treo has issues constantly rebooting it when I connect or disconnect.

5. cyberhomie Says:
   August 30th, 2005 at 7:24 am

   Seems very stable to me. I don’t think I have had a reset with it yet.

   Only problem is that it won’t work in the background with Google Talk, which is unfortunate. Supposedly the developer is looking into this.

6. Marc Says:
   September 1st, 2005 at 11:40 am

   I also gave Chatopus a quick spin and it seemed like a nice and simple program. I didn’t test against Google Talk though - I was connecting to jabber.org (this was before the Google Talk announcement). Is there any advantage in using Google’s server when you’re on the Treo though? Wouldn’t jabber.org or a personal or semi-personal Jabber server (my web host, DreamHost, offers Jabber as well) work just as well.

   Has anyone tried using Chatopus with an IM gateway in order to talk to folks on Yahoo!, AOL, MSN, etc…?

7. palmteam Says:
   November 10th, 2005 at 8:39 am

   Causerie from MantraGroup is what I use everyday for Google talk. Give the same information (talk.google.com) in Jabber server field and it connects flawlessly.

8. AYS Weblog » Google Talk Says:
   January 7th, 2006 at 9:50 am

   […] http://www.treoaddicts.com/archives/2005/08/24/google-talk-on-your-treo/ […]

9. Steve Says:
   April 20th, 2006 at 1:48 pm

   I have a newby to IM sort of question, but does this method (which works great, btw), use up SMS credits on my service? I have unlimited data due to my corporate Goodlink account, but not unlimited SMS. Just curious what this thing rides on - my expensed Goodlink connection/unlimited data with Verizon or my out of pocket SMS message fees.

   Thanks, Steve

10. odelay Says:
    May 8th, 2006 at 5:15 pm

    This is really interesing - gonna try it out. Do you know the average data traffic a ‘chat’ would use? I’m on a 100mb / month data plan and here in oz it’s impossible to find an unlimited plan at present.

11. Sorin Says:
    May 9th, 2006 at 7:30 am

    I have a 10MB/month plan and am running Verichat in background mode with my yahoo account. It uses well under 1 MB/month so you don’t have to worry about that.

12. Hybrid Says:
    June 20th, 2006 at 4:11 pm

    Does Chatopus support multiple Yahoo/MSN accts running in the background?

13. asiayeah Says:
    June 24th, 2006 at 3:11 am

    Yes, Chatopus supports multiple Yahoo/MSN/ICQ or other types of accounts via the use of multiple gateways.

    For details, you can read the below article,

    http://www.chatopus.com/articles/transports.html

14. gadget reviews | cellphone reviews » Blog Archive » The Palm Treo 700w (aka Treo 670) - Exclusive first look! - Engadget Says:
    August 11th, 2006 at 1:45 am

    […] So now that I had it set up on my computer, I quickly decided to try to figure out how to get it so I could access Google Talk on my Treo. … more… […]

15. Al Says:
    October 6th, 2006 at 4:28 pm

    GoogleTalk works really nice, but I need a SSL library to be able to have GoogleTalk working in the background. Otherwise, it is just casual solution. Unlike other services I can be 24/7 online. Is it just me or anybody else is interested in this plug-in?

    Al

16. Fan of Don Lapre Says:
    November 15th, 2006 at 12:34 pm

    Thanks for the info. I use google talk for business these days.

    Laura
    Fan of Don Lapre
    www.lauraglydaband.com
    laura@lauraglydaband.com

17. Arnie Says:
    March 20th, 2007 at 4:56 am

    Thanks for the article.
    How would I set up Chatopus so that I can log into ICQ and Google at the same time?

18. shivom Says:
    August 7th, 2007 at 2:39 am

    how to give connectivity to google talk on our new site in joomla?

19. blair Says:
    December 19th, 2007 at 11:45 am

    How do you download chatopus to your treo?

20. gtalk logo by CompanyLogos.ws Says:
    August 25th, 2009 at 4:08 am

    Google Talk (GTalk) est un Windows gratuit et application Web pour la messagerie instantanée et voix sur protocole internet (VOIP), proposé par Google Inc

    For more information please visit http://www.companylogos.ws/googletalklogo.html

    Good Article, Good Logo

21. Crystal Says:
    December 22nd, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    I downloaded and installed this, works great except that I cannot update my status… Is there a setting or something I need to change?

22. Towel rails heated Says:
    February 26th, 2010 at 2:06 am

    Thanks for posting this, lifted my day.