Some Cool Google Talk Tips And Tricks

With Google Talk being the talk of the town right now, some people loving it, and some hating it, I thought of posting some cool and useful tips and tricks for those who wanna tweak and get some more juice from it. I will try to keep it short and easy.

~Some General Info n Tips~

1. Insert Line Breaks - 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.

2. Bold Text - To write something bold, you can use an asterisk before and after the word, like *this*.

3. Italic Text - To use italics, use an underscore before an after the word, like _this_ .

4. Switch Windows - Hitting tab will cycle through open windows. It will select minimized conversations, to expand them just hit enter. If you just want to cycle through IM's and don't care about the buddy list, control-tab will do that and will automatically expand a minimized conversation if you settle on one.

5. Length Of A Single Message - A message can be max 32767 characters long.

~Some More Tips And Tricks~

1. How To Make 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 the target 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 2nd instance 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.

2. Nickname & Status Message:
You can't change your nickname in a way that other people will see it change. Every nickname in the Google Talk contactlist is the part that is before @gmail.com (only the alphabetical characters are used) or the name you chosen for your GMail account. To change the nickname need to go to your Gmail account and change the name there. Choose Settings, Accounts, and then Edit info. Click on the second radio button, and enter your custom name. 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 custom message, it will be clickable when someone opens a conversation window with you.

3. Contacts:
You don't need to say Yes or No when someone wants to add you as a friend; you can simply ignore it, the request will go away. (On the other hand, someone with whom you chat often will automatically turn to be your friend, unless you disable this).
Wierd: The Gmail account 'user@gmail.com' can't be invited as your friend.

4. Keyboard Shortcuts:
Ctrl + 5 (KeyPad) - Selects all the text typed.
Ctrl + 1 (NumPad) - It goes at the end of the last line.
Ctrl + 7 (NumPad) - It goes at the begin of the last line.
Ctrl + F4 - It closes the current window.
Alt + F4 - It closes the current window.
Alt + Esc - It Minimize the current open window.
Windows + ESC - Open Google Talk (if it's minimized, or in the tray).
F9 - Open Gmail to send an email to the current contact.
F11 - It initiates a telephonic call with your friend.
F12 - It cancels a telephonic call.
Esc - It closes the current window.