Well, after some browsing of the Google Talk forums it looks like I’m not the only one working on a list of hacks etc. for Google Talk….

Wumpus has put together a more comprehensive list…. including these (very handy) ideas:

Conference Calls

What you need to do to have conference calls:

Open up a copy of Google Talk on all computers with which you wish to conference.

After one copy is opened make a new shortcut for Google Talk but at the end of it add /nomutex.

If you installed it to the default folder then your shortcut should read “C:\Program Files\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe” /nomutex.

Open 2 instances of the software on every user’s computer.

After this start a chain:

User 1 should connect on one instance to user 2.

User 2 will connect on his second instance to user 3.

User 3 will connect using his second instance back to user 1.

With this chain everyone is connected to everyone

Nickname & Status Message

To change your nickname you need to go to you account properties in your Gmail account and change the name there.As a result all of your emails will have that nick as well, there is no way to seperate the two.

You can add a website in your away message, it will be clickable in conversation windows.

“Secret” Parameters

/nomutex: allows you to open more than one instance of Google Talk.

/factoryreset: set settings back to default.

/mailto email@host.com: send an email with Gmail.

/s upgrade: used when upgrading Google Talk.

Here’s a few hacks I’ve found by playing with Google Talk

Bold Text: Put * around the word.
Example: I *love* Google —> I love Google

Italic Text: Put _ around the word.
Example I _love_ Google —> I love Google

To switch between multiple chat windows, press Tab. Ctrl+Tab will go in the opposite direction.

You can show your homepage or blog URL simply by entering it in your away message (at the top of the main window). It will automatically turn to a link visible to others.

Some smileys – so far I’ve found the following:

🙂
🙂
🙁
🙁
😉
🙂

that are recognised by Google Talk and will turn blue.

To switch between multiple (undocked) chat windows, press Ctrl+Tab

Linebreaks – If you want to have a message that spans multiple paragraphs, just hold shift and hit enter. You can add as many new lines as you want to create.

URL’s / Hyperlinks – Google Talk will detect a website address and automagically turn it into hyperlink, which is then clickable by the recipient.

Change Text Size (Wheel mouse required) – Do you find the default text is too small or too large? You can change the text by pressing Ctrl + mouse scroll up/down. Scroll up will enlarge the text, scroll down will decrease the text size. The change is only on your screen, it will not affect the receiver side’s text size. (Google spoil all my fun!! :-))

If you’re interested in trying Google Talk – leave a comment (including your e-mail address) and I’ll sort you out a GMail invite