Chat

Problem with Orkut Chat: its Solution

Can not chat with some friends in Orkut ?

Orkut Chat feature has been rolled-out to almost all the Orkut accounts. And many people are facing some annoying problem with it. i.e., they are able to chat with some friends and are not able to chat with some other friends, even though both of then have enabled and are available for chat!

This is due to the permission set in your Orkut account settings.

Solution:
Goto “Settings ” and click on “Chat” tab. Now click on the group of friends that you want to chat with and block the friends with whom you don’t want to chat. You can individually select, with whom you want/don’t want to chat with, by clicking on the small arrow symbol(which is highlighted in the above image).
After selecting/deselecting the friends to chat/not to chat with, click on save button.

New Chat & SMS Widget inside Classic Yahoomail!

I was using Yahoomail as usual, and suddenly something popped up with a water bubble bursting sound. I could see a blue widget above my email folders. I never did anything to get this. No settings, no modifications, no plugins. I was just checking my mail and the blue widget appeared and after a refresh it disappeared. I used the back button in my FireFox browser and took the screen shots of the chat & sms widget.
It had already imported all the contacts and mobile numbers from my Yahoo! messenger.
It looks cool, loads fast.
Here are some screen shots:

It appeared in the Classic Yahoomail and not in the upgraded version of YahooMail. Upgraded version of Yahoomail already has a separate portion for chatting. But this is something new and better, as we need not move from the inbox to start chatting(some what similar to that in Gmail.)

Click above image to see in full screen

Tab for multiple user chat
Did you notice this widget in your Yahoo mail? Hope this is in the initial state of testing. And Yahoo! will rollout this feature to all its users some time in the future.

Got the Chat and SMS widget back in my Yahoo Mail again. Its not disappearing now. Its nice to chat and adds more fun to its already famous Mail

Fully integrated chat in orkut = GTalk + Orkut

One of our favorite features in GMail is its integrated Chat box. Now I have got another reason to stay logged into my Orkut account, whenever I am not blogging!
But with this integration, I think that the scrap books will become much like a testimonial page or spam book! Because most of the people will use the sophisticated Chat box instead of sending scraps to eachother and keep waiting and refreshing to see the new scraps!

And people may argue that, in offices and schools, the administrators will block the Chat box, so people will still be sending the scraps(as chat messages). But we think, if the administrator thinks that Chatbox in Orkut isn’t safe, then he is also likely to think that Orkut itself isn’t safe to be allowed to access!

Anyway, with this new feature we can:-
* Chat with your orkut friends in real time from directly within orkut.
* Control which of your orkut friends can chat with you.
* Chat with your Google Talk and Gmail chat contacts.
* Visit different orkut pages while keeping your chatboxes open.

My favorite thing would be, chating with GMail and Google Talk buddies using my Orkut account. Thats cool, isn’t it?
orkut-gmail-chat

You get full control of who can see you online, who can chat with you etc, in Orkut “Settings” page.
If you don’t see this feature enabled in your account yet, just be patient, Google will rollout this feature to all its users in a couple of days.
orkut-chat-settings

Till this feature is enabled to you, have a look at:

What do you think about the new features in Orkut? Do you think it will reach a state of facebook soon?

Voice and Video chat – right inside Gmail

Today Google released the Voice and Video chat feature to its Gmail. Switching from email to chat as needed, all within the same app, is really great for productivity.
video-voice-chat-gmail
From Gmail Blog:

All you have to do is download and install the voice and video plugin and you are ready. And in the spirit of open communications, Google has designed this feature using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP, and H.264, which means that third-party applications and networks can choose to interoperate with Gmail voice and video chat.

Source: GmailBlog

This feature is available both in Gmail and Apps account. Seems like Google will soon steal the market share of Email Service. Presently Yahoo tops the list – Comscore figures.
The problem with Google not listing in the top might be, many people with a domain will be using Google Apps google.com/a/domain.com instead of the default gmail.com.