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xmpp posts

Filed under: Developer, Social Software

Facebook Chat gets XMPP, catches up with AIM, Google Talk and MSN

Facebook Chat has been a bit slow to catch on. Since it's been relegated to being opened from the web in a Facebook Tab, it hasn't been able to compete with chat services that have their own dedicated clients, like AIM, MSN and Yahoo. Although some third-party apps - like Adium - have made the extra effort to support Facebook Chat, it's not widespread. That's about to change, though, when Facebook adopts XMPP and becomes compatible with tons of existing chat apps.

XMPP is most famous as the protocol behind Google Talk. That means any chat program that currently includes Google Talk will be able to include Facebook Chat too. Facebook, like Google, is starting out in the chat market with the advantage of huge pre-existing contact lists - for Google, it was your Gmail contacts, and for Facebook it's, well, Facebook. If you've ever wished you could just automatically add all of your Facebook buddies to your favorite IM program, you're in for a treat.

[via GigaOM]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity

Jake keeps collaborative file-sharing in sync

Jake is a cross-platform collaborative file-sharing client that lets you create a folder and keep it synced for everyone you invite. It's built on open-source tools like Jabber, and seems to have a lot of features going for it. You can't really beat it for ease of use: setup is just adding a folder and inviting people, with no server-side fiddling to do. Even better, you can set Jake up on your intranet if you want to use it for work-related purposes.

The main difference between Jake and similar solutions like Dropbox is that Jake doesn't store files on a central server in the cloud. It just uses Jabber, XMPP and other open-source tools to sync the folder for users when they're online. Although Jake saves a log of the changes users make to the folder, it doesn't back up old versions of the data - again, no central server. This makes it slightly less powerful than some other, similar file-sharing services, but it makes setup a lot easier.

Filed under: Internet, Text, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Productivity, Freeware

Openfire: cross-platform Jabber server

Openfire
Openfire is an open-source Jabber (XMPP) server that provides an easy way to offer and maintain internal instant messaging (including voice and video chat) for your company or organization. There are server plugins available which can add archiving and statistics capabilities as well as message of the day and multi-user chat (MUC) bookmarks.

Openfire conveniently supports LDAP and Active Directory authentication as well as SSL for encrypting communications. If you require high availability, you can enable clustering to eliminate a single point of failure. Common databases like MySQL, Microsoft SQL, and PostgreSQL are supported, or you can use Openfire's embedded database.

While the developers offer a web-based (SparkWeb) client and install-based (Spark) client, it's possible to use any IM client that supports Jabber (Adium, Pidgin, iChat, etc.). Openfire runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows and since it's Java based, it will require that you have a JRE installed.

Filed under: Developer, Fun, Internet, E-mail, Productivity, Web services

Google Talk's translation bots

Google Talk's translation botsChatting with people who speak another language just got a lot easier thanks to Google's translation bots.

The translation bots provide a way to translate between Google Talk contacts in a group chat or as a translation tool. All you have to do is add one of 29 bots as a contact using their two letter language abbreviation. So in order to translate from an English conversation to a French one, you would add "en2fr@bot.talk.google.com" as a Google Talk contact. Now you can enter a group chat with a user who speaks French, bring the chat bot into the conversation, and the bot will translate everything you say into French and everything the other person says into English.

If you have a Blackberry, the Google Talk client will also function as a translator while on the go. It works the same way, by adding the appropriate translation bot to your chat conversation.

Google is also calling all developers to build their own XMPP based bots for such things as weather services and games that can be added into the Google Talk open protocol.

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Google

Using Google Accounts for Single Sign-On

Google TalkDeveloping a web service and don't want to manage your own authentication? Use Google's! That's the gist of this article, which describes how to use SSL and XMPP to authenticate your users against Google's database of users in the same way Google Talk does. The article uses as an example Zooomr, an interesting service made more interesting by the fact that it allows authentication from a number of outside sources, including Google, OpenID, and Meetro. The method isn't anything special, but it is an interesting way to get things done.

[Via O'Reilly Radar]

Filed under: Internet, Google, Open Source

Google Talk VoIP protocols published

Google TalkLast week the Jabber Software Foundation announced the publication of Jingle, a set of extensions to XMPP, the message protocol used by Jabber, for use VoIP and video, which are open version of the protocols used by Google Talk. Google has been working with Jabber to standardize these protocols, and have released the open source Libjingle package for other developers to make use of the protocols. The makers of other software including Trillian, Asterisk, and Gaim have also pledged support of the Jingle protocols. Will Microsoft and AOL join the party?

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