Configuring Pidgin to connect to Google Talk for my domain.

Being Linux user I have been using Pidgin for Google Talk on my gmail account. After becoming the Administrator of my domain and putting up Google Talk Badge on public Google sites I was using the service through gmail account @my_domain.

Today I discovered how to set up Pidgin for my domain and there is no need to login to gmail account @my_domain to chat with the visitors to the sites.

This is how I did it:

Basic Tab
Username: admin (this is my username@my_domain)
Domain: my_domain.com
Local alias: Web Administrator

 Advanced Tab
Connect server: talk.google.com

Now whenever, the visitor at my domain site clicks on "Chat with Web Administrator" badge I get a message on Pidgin "Accept chat invitation?" and after clicking on Accept the Conversation window opens.

If the visitor to this site clicks on "Chat with Kamalakar Agashe" badge on right side bar I get same message on Pidgin but when I see my userid in the conversation window I understand that this is a visitor to my blog and not the site @my_domain

Uploading custom Presentation Template for use on Google Docs.

The members of our domain were using a particular background on Office presentations. I made a blank slide using that background, saved it as ppt, uploaded it to Google Docs and opened it for editing. It was just a background for slides without any text boxes. First I tried to insert a text box but it needed to be resized on the slide.

Then I clicked to insert a new slide and it asked me to chose the slide layout. After choosing the layout the text boxes appeared with the text "Click to add title" and "Click to add subtitle". I added one more slide with the next layout and it had the text boxes with "Click to add title" and "Click to add content". I deleted the blank slide and saved the file as "Standard_Template".

I shared the file with all the members of the domain and told them to copy the file for their use and leave the template file as empty.

Now they are motivated to use Google Presentation.

First Post on a new Blog.

I am blogger since July 2005 starting with My Tryst with Linux I am starting this new blog since the experience with Google Applications does not relate to Linux except Google Applications are also free to use and may be open source to some extent.

I learned about gmail in 2005 and managed an invitation when all users were given 100 invitations in Sep 2005. I learnt about Google Docs soon after its launch in Oct 2006 and loved the convenience of creating/uploading the Docs online. I have been using it for online Doc storage and sharing.

In last 3 years gmail has grown immensely and almost everyone is having a gmail account therefore when you talk about Google Applications for the organisations no training is required for using the mail account.

Till last month I did not know that for small groups of people using Google Applications is free if you have registered a domain. In fact I learnt about it when I saw an email address user@archlinux.us and the user told me that he got it free. Suddenly I was interested since this was like Ubuntu for Human Beings free with all meanings of the word 'free'.

I digged a little more on Google and found that you can buy the domain through Google which is registered at Godaddy or eNom If you go through Google then your account at the Domain Registrar is configured automatically to use Google Applications and if you register it you have to configure it yourself but lot of help is available.

Meanwhile my son-in-law launched a private limited company in July 2009 and was looking for low cost email and document sharing solution. He was thrilled to know that he could use gmail @his_domain

His business associate registered the domain of their choice on GoDaddy and signed up for Google Applications and I made the gmail available for 5 people in his company in less than one hour, thanks to GoDaddy.