Tag Archives: Google Talk

Browsers

Use Gtalk on any Tab in Chrome Using Gtalklet

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Google Mail is used by a lot of people every day and Gtalk is one of the most frequently used chat clients. I use Gtalk all the time to keep in touch with my Gmail friends and contacts. It’s pretty simple, the audio clarity is okay and so is the video chat. It’s fast too and comes free with Gmail, so you don’t have to install anything to use it. However, the chat is only available in Gmail tab and Google+, meaning you cannot access it from any other tab and will have to switch back to the Gmail tab to reply to your conversation.

Gtalklet is a really super useful Google Chrome extension that lets you use the Gtalk chat on any tab, any webpage in Chrome browser. It’s really simple to setup and works really well too.

With this installed, the need to switch tabs every time you need to reply to a friend or client is a thing of past. I’ve tried this extension and it works really well. After you’ve installed the extension, you’ll need to head over to the Extension Settings and then add your Gmail username and password so that it connects to Gtalk.

Unfortunately, Google Apps account can’t be used with this extension. So only regular, non-business Gtalk users can enjoy this at the moment. Once you’ve set it up, you’ll need to refresh your page to see two new buttons on either the right side bottom or left side.

Click on the Circle button to set your status to Available, Busy or Idle or even go Invisible. To start a chat click on the + button and type a contacts email or name. You can directly sign-out from here too. To disable Gtalklet click on the Chat icon on the address bar, if it’s grey it’s offline and blue means online.

Download Gtalklet from the Chrome Web Store for free and try it out.

Google

Gmail Voice Integrated Into Gtalk: Make Free Voice Call to US and Canada

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Today Google team announced the launch of Gmail voice for Gtalk users. This means now you can make voice call from your computer to any phone number. Calls to Canada and U.S number will be free but call to other countries will be chargeable. Here are call rates for other countries.

gmail-free-call

This new service is going to give stiff competition to current popular Skype which let you call to any phone number from your Pc.

How to Get Started with Google Voice from PC to any Phone Number?

This service will be rolling out in phases and first one to see this will be U.S Gmail users. You need to install Voice and Video chat addon to use this service.

Under your chat list you will see Call phone, click on that and dial phone number and start talking.

Here are some excerpts from Official announcement:

if you have a Google Voice phone number, calls made from Gmail will display this number as the outbound caller ID. And if you decide to, you can receive calls made to this number right inside Gmail (see instructions).
We’re rolling out this feature to U.S. based Gmail users over the next few days, so you’ll be ready to get started once “Call Phones” shows up in your chat list (you will need to install the voice and video plug-in if you haven’t already). If you’re not a U.S. based user—or if you’re using Google Apps for your school or business—then you won’t see it quite yet. We’re working on making this available more broadly—so stay tuned!

Here is cool demo video done by Gmail Voice team showing how calling has changed over time:

Personally I liked the idea of making free calls to U.S and Canada based free number. And I will wait to see this service getting rolled out in my country ASAP.

Do share your views about this New feature from Google team?