Late Tuesday Google quietly introduced their IM client, Google Talk. Apparently, the official release is set for Wednesday. A quick glance at their client page, shows that once again, Mac users get the shaft… no “official” Google Talk client.. however.. in this case.. its not as bad as it sounds.. in that we can use iChat..or almost any other Mac based IM client, since Google’s IM is Jabber based. So.. here’s what you need:

• A Gmail account (If anyone doesn’t have one.. I’ve got plenty of invites if you want one)
• Setup iChat following these instructions. Which basically amount to:
• Create a new Jabber account in iChat’s preferences
• Username/password are your gmail account information
• Server name is talk.google.com
• The defaults work good for the rest of the setup

Then you’ll need someone to chat with.. my Google talk (and then obviously, one of my email addresses) is tepper(dot)dan(at)gmail.com (obvious formatting changes to try and at least slow down the amount of spam that’ll hit that account now.