Transferring files with the Google Talk client
When you are chatting with someone in a business context and you are collaborating on a project, you may want to send a file, you may want to share a photo or a text file. In either case, click the Send Files button in the Client. The Send Files button only appears in the separate window that opens when you initiate a conversation with someone else. It appears as a down arrow next to the Chat and Call buttons.
To send a file with Google Talk:
- From an open Google Talk client chat window (the second window that appears next to the main Google Talk window when you are actually exchanging messages with someone), click the Send Files button.
- When the standard dialog box for opening files appears, browse to the file or files you’d like to send (use CTRL-Shift to select more than one file at a time).
- Select the file and click OK. Google Talk will insert your file into the chat session.
- Once the file is added, you see a button labeled Cancel the transfer. Doing so will withdraw the offer. if you don’t, the person with whom you are chatting can click Accept to download the file to their hard drive, or Decline to reject the transfer.
If you have a list of files open on your computer, you can drag and drop the icon(s) for files and folders into the open chat window to initiate a transfer.
Viewing Chat Logs
Most personal chat sessions are ultimately forgettable. You don’t need a written record of what you and your friends said to one another (nor would you want one). But if you use Google Talk for any kind of business-related communication, chat logs become important. A log file is a record of what took place on a networked hardware or software device. By default, Google Talk does keep a log file of your chat conversations. The file is recorded in your Gmail account and remains there as long as you have space to store the file. You actually see a message to this effect in the Quick Contacts box in your Gmail message window (see Figure 10-8). Click the down arrow to the left of Quick Contacts and click on the recent conversations link to view past chats.
You can also access your previous chats by clicking on the Chats link, which appears beneath the Inbox link on the left side of your Gmail page. It can also be advantageous not to log your chat sessions, and if you specifically don’t want Google Talk to log any chat sessions, you can do so by clicking Settings near the top of the chat window. When the Settings dialog box, click Chat in the list of topics on the left. Click Don’t save chat history in my Gmail account. Then click OK. You should save your chat files in accordance with your organization’s e-mail retention policy; check with your network administrator to make sure you should be saving your log, and how long you should keep it.