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