Configure Pidgin for GoogleTalk in Proxy

Here’s how to configure GoogleTalk in Pidgin under a proxy server:

1. Open Pidgin and go to Add / Edit Account window of Pidgin.
2. From the drop-down box choose XMPP as the Protocol.
3. For the Screen name enter your Google Id (Gmail Id without the @gmail.com). 
4. For Server enter gmail.com

• You can leave the Resource with the default “Home“.
• In the Password field enter your Google ID password.
• Enter Local alias as whatever you want to.

1. In the Advanced tab, check Require SSL/TLS
2. Force old SSL unchecked, and Allow plaintext auth unchecked
3. Connect port: 5222
4. File transfer proxies: proxy.jabber.org
5. Select the desired proxy protocol. e.g. HTTP
6. Enter the proxy domain host. e.g. proxy.accenture.com
7. Enter the proxy port. e.g. 80 or 8080
8. If your proxy requires an authentication, enter proxy username and password.

Troubleshooting errors reported:

• HTTP proxy connection error 407
  • Means the proxy requires an authentication.  Just enter your proxy username and password.
• HTTP proxy connection error 504
  • Means there’s a connection timeout.
  • Alternatively use this settings:
  • Require SSL/TLS: Unchecked
    Force old (port 5223) SSL: Checked
    Allow plaintext auth over unencrypted streams: Un-Checked
    Connect Port: 443
    Connect Server: talk.google.com
    Proxy type: Use Global Proxy Settings

Hope this helps!

Tools for group collaboration

I came across this on the Net. Some cool tools for online group collaboration (that you can use without sitting right next to each other).

1. Zoho – It’s hard to jump in and describe the best features about Zoho’s vast suite of online editing and group organization tools, because so much changes on a week-to-week basis.  It’s able to handle both the lower-level tasks of group editing, document sharing, and other work, as well as the milestone tracking, group chat, invoice creation, and other tasks needed by teams that aren’t sitting right next to each other. It’s good stuff, and it’s free.
2. MindMeister – For ideas and projects where drawing a line through your thoughts helps keep them together, MindMeister is a great helper. Not only does their web-based design tool allow for easy branching, notating, and organization, but if you just want to jam in a few ideas to be molded into shape later, it allows for email additions. You can, of course, share, publish, and collaborate on your mental diagrams, and doing so might just save you a really unnecessary phone call or stop-and-chat.

   If you use Freemind like me, this is your online version of it.

3. DimDim – Makers of “webinar” software are feverishly pitching the idea of at-your-desk conferences as a money-saving alternative to travel these days. DimDim, an open-source meeting platform, offers web users a truly money-saving experience, with up to 20 users able to view a presentation, three of them with microphone access, with no software installations required. It’s a nice step up if you need something a little more professional than a social video chat room, and is surprisingly responsive on freehand drawing, text, audio, and even screencasting across a variety of connection speeds.
4. Google Wave – an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
5. Google Groups – Groups lets a, um, group of like-minded folks hash out arguments, answer questions, and point to helpful resources without software or constraints. Users of a group can rate posts for helpfulness, search out answers across their own groups or other similar-themed topics, and get their answers and responses delivered from an easily filtered email source. It’s an oft-overlooked tool in an age of fancy-pants social tools, but it gets everyone hooked up and talking pretty quickly.

Pidgin messaging client and Windows memory performance

In a corporate world, we are required to work in a Windows system.  Windows applications are so inadequate and does not perform well on windows itself; not that its programming model is “bulok” or rotten, but the general theme of the corporate world is selfish – and not community driven.  Examples are each companies that promote their messaging client have their own protocol and client.   When you use all (Filipinos normally have accounts for all messaging clients – Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, AIM, and the like), your Windows system will eventually become slow.  If you look into the memory footprint of Skype, it occupies 30MB or more.  Same goes for Yahoo Messenger.  So when you add that up, it will take 60MB or more.

Being an avid Linux user, where community and unselfishness thrives; everything in Linux are adaptive and ideal – programmers try to incorporate all.  I’ll introduce to you the Pidgin messaging client.  Pidgin is so called a universal messaging client.  It can act as a Yahoo Messenger client, Google Talk, AIM, and so many more. – except for Skype.  Even if you have accounts on all these, looking at the memory footprint for Pidgin above is just less than 30MB.  Here we can see a lot of memory savings and therefore improves performance.

Above are the various protocols that can be added to Pidgin.