How to get MSN, Yahoo & Google Talk contacts in iChat


Recommended Posts

This has probably been posted before, but I haven't seen it; I think it's worthwhile putting the guide up again anyway for fresh eyes.

Anyone that uses a mac knows that microsoft messenger is a wretched program that is technologically and visuall equivalent to about messenger 6.0 on the PC. So I went about searching for how I could add all my contacts to iChat, which fits in nicely with the OSX gui. Here's what I found:-

1. Sign up for Google Talk. If you already have a gmail address then it's already considered a Google Talk account.

2. Download Psi from here.

3. Launch Psi

4. Cancel out of the account creation screen that opens automatically the first time you open Psi. Instead go to "General" > "Account Setup" in the menu bar.

5. Click Add.

6. Enter Google Talk for the name and click Add.

7. Enter your Google Talk id for Jabber ID and your password (ex. [email protected])

8. Click on the Connection Tab.

9. Use the Encrypt Connection dropdown box to choose Legacy SSL.

10. Make sure Probe Legacy SSL is checked.

11. Allow plaintext authentication "over encrypted connection".

12. Set server host to talk.google.com and port 5223

13. Click save

14. Login to Google Talk?s jabber server by selecting Google Talk and selecting Status -> Online

15. Select Psi -> Preferences and select Events

16. Check Ignore Events from contacts not in roster and Auto-authorize contacts

17. Deselect Notify when auth received and then click OK

18. Close the preferences window.

19. In the menu bar select General -> Service Discovery

20. Enter jabber.anywise.com in address and click browse

21. Select MSN or Yahoo gateway, depending on which one you want. You can only do one at a time, so jump back to this step if you want to add both, or another client like AIM.

Right click and select Register

22. Enter your MSN or Yahoo credentials

23. You will see all your other contacts get added to your buddy list. This can take a few minutes to complete.

24. Quit Psi

25. Launch iChat

26. If you're running iChat for the first time and it comes up with an account creation window, go to step 28. Otherwise choose iChat -> Preferences and select Accounts pane.

27. Click (+) to add a new account

28. Select Account Type of Jabber

29. Enter your Google Talk ID and password (ex. [email protected])

30. Enter talk.google.com for server

31. Enable SSL and allow self-signed certificates. Also verify port 5223 is used

32. Close preferences

33. Choose Window -> Jabber

34. Set status to Online and you will see your full buddy list

From here you just rename your contacts to nicknames or whatever you like.

Article Source (amended by me here).

Are you using this yourself? I'm interested in giving it a try if someone on here can verify that it actually works for MSN. :D

I sure am. I'm primarily using it for my msn contacts, but I do have one google talk contact as well. The cool thing is that because that google talk contact is also an msn contact of mine, ichat just lists him once and I see him online/away/offline and it treats the two accounts as one.

iChat has tabbed chat windows too which is a cool feature.

What downsides are there when using this compared to Messenger for Mac?

Very few, but these are the things I consider the downsides:-

1. To add a contact, with msn for example, you can't simply use their hotmail address. The format is email%[email protected]

2. When you first add contacts it shows their email addresses only. You have to open each contact and add their first name, last name and nicknames.

3. Rather than say "Buddy List" at the top of the iChat screen it says "Jabber List". No biggie but I'd rather it didn't say it.

post-18827-1249964633.png

I can't find any other downsides the way I use it! It looks better than MSN, it has video (but I don't have a webcam so I can't confirm if it works with PC msn users) and you can modify sounds etc. For me, just having the tabbed chats is enough to switch to it.

I think Adium is a better solution since it looks better and supports more MSN features than a Jabber gateway would i.e. Avatars, file transfers, status messages, nicknames,etc.

Also ichat wont support video for jabber contacts.

In response to .Neo and PureLegend; No Filetransfer and almost never any avatars for MSN buddies. When I used a solution similar to this with Openfire I had all my MSN contacts in the OS X Address Book and just added their Jabber address in there, then I could set buddy pictures for my buddies. Most of my contacts already had their pictures snatched with Adium. But filetransfer with a MSN transport is not something I have succeeded with in my many attempts to use MSN inside iChat.

Can't you just use Adium?

I have a Mac Pro running Mac OS X v10.5.8, so yeah obviously I could.

However, I've always thought that Adium was both overrated and overhyped. Network wise it doesn't really offer anything over Messenger for Mac, in fact in some cases it's worse. And while Messenger might not be the prettiest Mac OS X application out there it still looks decent out of the box. In order to get to that same point with Adium I have to make my way around its preferences, skin packs, icon packs, sound packs, IM styles, contact window styles, emoticons and whatever else I have to install and tweak. Not to mention the fact its menus and preference windows are more crowded than the average slum you see on on Discovery.

Come to think of it Adium is probably one of the worst and most user-unfriendly Mac OS X applications I ever installed on my Mac.

  • 5 months later...

Yeah I agree. MSN Messenger for Mac is better than Adium out of the box. I have never gotten Adium to the point where I am satisfied with the way it looks.

Really? Adium is one, if not the most customisable messengers for mac out there..

So you would rather use:

Mac Messenger

messengerformac_20080630185804.jpg

As opposed to Adium (currently what mine looks like - its translucent)

rswg3a.png

:huh:

Did you read his post? "MSN Messenger for Mac is better than Adium out of the box." What you're showing isn't what Adium looks like out of the box. Next to that looking at your screen shot I'd actually prefer Messenger for Mac.

Did you read his post? "MSN Messenger for Mac is better than Adium out of the box." What you're showing isn't what Adium looks like out of the box. Next to that looking at your screen shot I'd actually prefer Messenger for Mac.

Say... doing this, is it possible to add only certain MSN contacts instead of importing my whole list?

So, nobody tested :

- The speed of file transfers?

- An audio conference?

- A video conference?

Also, which of these MSN features does it offer :

- Nudges? (I'm guessing a no)

- Receive custom emoticons?

- Send custom emoticons? (I'm guessing a no)

- Handwriting (I'm guessing a no)

- Custom statuses? (I'm guessing a no)

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Qualcomm takes on NVIDIA with new Dragonfly CPU and AI chips by Pradeep Viswanathan Microsoft, Google, Amazon, AMD, Meta, Apple, OpenAI, and several others have been developing their own chips for AI infrastructure. However, NVIDIA still remains the dominant player in the market. Today, Qualcomm announced a major expansion of its data center infrastructure portfolio to better compete with NVIDIA. The new lineup includes the Qualcomm Dragonfly C1000 CPU, Qualcomm High Bandwidth Compute technology, the Dragonfly AI300 inference accelerator, new connectivity products, and custom silicon solutions. Qualcomm claims that this new lineup improves performance per watt, token throughput, and total cost of ownership for AI data centers. The Dragonfly C1000 is a new data center CPU built with Qualcomm’s custom Oryon cores. This chip will feature more than 250 cores, frequencies above 5GHz, and a chiplet-based design. Qualcomm claims that this new C1000 can deliver more than 2x better performance per watt compared to existing server CPU offerings based on specifications. The Dragonfly C1000 will support PCIe Gen 7 with more than 2TB/s of connectivity, along with CXL, advanced RAS features, and both air and liquid cooling. Qualcomm expects the Dragonfly C1000 to be commercially available in 2028. Additionally, Qualcomm and Meta announced a multi-year, multi-generation agreement under which Qualcomm will supply Dragonfly C1000 data center CPUs for Meta’s next-generation server fleet. Qualcomm also announced High Bandwidth Compute, a new near-memory computing architecture designed to address AI’s memory bandwidth bottleneck. HBC Gen 1 will debut with the Dragonfly AI250, which is expected to sample in mid-2027. The AI250 will deliver 133TB/s per card, an 18x increase in effective memory bandwidth compared to the AI200 with LPDDR5X. The new Dragonfly AI300 with HBC Gen 2 is a rack-level AI inference platform from Qualcomm. Qualcomm claims that the AI300 can deliver 4x to 8x better performance per watt compared to existing GPU-based architectures based on memory bandwidth per watt per card. The Dragonfly AI300 is expected to be available in 2028.
    • IBM reveals sub-1nm chip technology, production expected in another 5 years by Pradeep Viswanathan TSMC is now leading the chip manufacturing industry with its 2nm-class process node called N2. Samsung Foundry also has a 2nm-class process node called SF2. TSMC says N2 entered volume production in Q4 2025. Samsung says SF2 started mass production in 2025. Today, IBM announced the world’s first sub-1-nanometer chip technology, marking another major semiconductor research milestone. The new technology is based on a 0.7nm, or 7-angstrom, node and uses a new transistor architecture called “nanostack.” The new design vertically stacks and staggers nanosheet-based transistors so that more components can fit into the same chip area while also improving performance and power efficiency. IBM claims that this new sub-1nm chip can pack nearly 100 billion transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail. This offers almost twice the density, up to 50 percent higher performance, or 70 percent better energy efficiency when compared to IBM's 2nm node design announced back in 2021. Also, IBM mentioned that this new architecture can deliver 40 percent SRAM scaling. It is important to consider that this announcement from IBM is a research milestone rather than a near-term process node launch. Back in 2021, IBM unveiled the world’s first 2nm chip design, claiming 50 billion transistors on a fingernail-sized chip and major performance and efficiency gains. Five years later, IBM’s 2nm technology has still not entered mainstream commercial production. That is because IBM is no longer a major commercial chip manufacturer. It sold its chip manufacturing business to GlobalFoundries years ago and has since then focused only on semiconductor research, IP development, and partnerships. To productize its 2-nm chip technology, IBM partnered with Japan’s Rapidus, but it has not resulted in anything shipping at scale. IBM says that its new sub-1nm technology can reach production as early as within the next five years. If that happens, it will likely depend on manufacturing partners, advanced EUV tooling, and years of yield improvements.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Meta Plast earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • First Post
      kinowa earned a badge
      First Post
    • Rookie
      krychek57 went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Grand Master
      Jaybonaut went up a rank
      Grand Master
    • One Year In
      Philsl earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      455
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      170
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      135
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      78
    5. 5
      Xenon
      77
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!