Think of a way

[Crispy]

ThinkofawaythinkofawaythinkofawaythinkofawaythinkofawaythinkofawaythinkofawaytolinkGoogleTalktoModdingthinkofawaythinkofawaythinkofawaythinkofawaythoughtofaway!

Avast ye, moddars of tha high seas!

Do ye not hate it when you're talking to one of your crew, perhaps it be tha cap'n, perhaps it be tha cartographer, perhaps it be tha fan -nay- cabinboy ye keeps tied up in the corner next to tha pokin' stick for when ye gets tha accursed moddar's block, but do ye not just hate it when ye has a really great yarn about a Mod feature, or ye just be working out a niggling problem, or yees just had ye a Eureka! -nay- Yarr! moment, and ye come to copy/pasting it and half tha file be taken up by tha usar-names that appear every time ye has just hit tha 'line return' button? Do ye not just hate that? Do ye not just hate tha way certain instant chat programs be cuttin' ye conversations like a cutlass, unnecessarily givin' ye reminders of the name of the seadog ye be talkin' to, just because the ol' dog's took a pause in his sentence? Do ye not just hate it when ye leave an away message as "Out To Lunch", when it's the evening, not the middle of the day, or more likely, it's 03:24 in the morning, ye've been Modding -nay- swashbuckling so hard through tha night and previous day that ye sleep deprivation (and general deprivation of fine wenches and ale) has left ye a twitching shipwreck of a man, a man with one eye dead from VeeDeeYoo overdose and the other searching for a remedy, a man so deep into the realms of insanity that he believes himself to be a PIIIRRRRAAATE! and that this remedy he seeks be a strip of black ducktape (that, if he were sane, he would know be giving him pains come tha morn'n), that he will use as a makeshift eyepatch to solve his ailments once and for all, and at that point of no return all ye really wanted was to set yonder away message as "I'm awf to hunt me down some vittles, me harrtees! Ooh-arrgh!"

No? Well I guess MSN Messenger's probably the thing for you. But if you yearn for an interface for your bold and italicised statements, if you despise the gormless grinning face that sequesters your colon capital dees, if you want on-screen chat window minimalisation to match the capabilities of your WinAmp player and if, IF, ladies and gentlepirates, you want a conversation to still be there, even if you closed the chat window some 50 minutes ago, so that you can remember what you were talking about before you turned into a buccaneer...

Avast ye, landlubbars! It's Google Talk!

 

[Maxi]

What the fawk? Fabulous!

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

Or you could just run a simple search and replace...

 

[SimonomiS]

Old. But fabulous.

 

[NickOuellette]

Interesting... now I just need some peoples' S/N's

 

[Asuka]

Aim/xfire ftw!

 

[Yorick]

That hardly seems like a worthy thread to revive.

GoogleTalk sucks cause it has no features. Or at least that's how it was when I used it.

 

[Crispy]

I didn't want this to turn into blatant advertising, but Google Talk does have plenty of features:

• Simple *bold* and _italics_ tags
• No custom smileys (recognised text smileys are shown in blue font instead)
• "2nd party is typing a message" and "2nd party has finished typing" info messages (keyboard icon also displays in text input box)
• Supports telegraphic-style speech (if you hit line return after every sentence/clause and you're not interrupted by the 2nd party, your text will all appear under one instance of your name)
• Custom and autosaved 'here' and 'busy' messages (easily and quickly changed if in a hurry; click over the current message to rewrite it and hit return)
• Autosaved conversations which can be continued hours, days, weeks later (time and date of last conversation displayed; autosave feature toggleable)
• Email your contacts at the click of a button (If you have Googlemail)
• Googlemail inbox reports flash up in bottom right of screen (From:, Header:, first two lines of message)
• On-screen minimisation (minimised bar still shows text)
• No adverts (not even GoogleAds)
• More reasons plus developer plans here

 

[Yorick]

How is "no custom smilies" a positive feature?

 

[Crispy]

Because I HATE the MSN Messenger smileys. They're less smileys, more demented caricatures of the emotions I want to express. Even if I turn them off the other person's still gonna see the same thing so I don't MSN have effectively rendered emoticons useless. They're also oversized and obtrusive.

Naturally, I'd prefer a decent set of smileys, like the IPB emoticons, but Google has gone for a universally acceptable form of smiley, instead of catering to one audience's needs and failing to meet another's, they've gone for the middle line. Which suits me fine. Remember Google Talk is still in Beta so things can be added in further down the line. Messenger's been around for years and has shown about as much innovation in that time as the wellington boot.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I only use good custom smileys.

But yeah, GTalk is awesome. It's like a phone, only free.

 

[Ennui]

Yep, I'm constantly on GT.

 

[Dekstar]

But yeah, GTalk is awesome. It's like a phone, only free.

SKYPE!!!

 

[JNightshade]

How do you use custom smilies? Is that a moderator's/content writer's privilege?

 

[Crispy]

No, you just search the internet for smileys you like, host them, and link back to the hostfile. Anyone can do it, and because they take up so little space you can host quite a few on image hosting sites like Imageshack.

 

[Yorick]

Custom smilies rock. My old roommate made me this one =)