Tip: Use iChat to Chat With FaceBook Friends

Facebook is now allowing you to connect with iChat. Some of my students were asking “how do you do that?”. It is really quite simple. Here are the steps in order to add a Facebook chat account to your iChat.

  1. In iChat, open Preferences, and go to the Accounts tab. Click the plus sign at the bottom of the window to add a new account.
  2. Select Jabber Account from the Account Type drop-down menu.
  3. Enter your_facebook_username@chat.facebook.com in the Account Name field, and enter your Facebook password in the Password field.
  4. Click the triangle next to Server Options . Enter chat.facebook.com in the Server field, and 5222 in the Port field. Make sure the Use SSL box is not checked.
  5. Click Done.

Launch iChat and it will now have your Facebook account added.

Actually, you can now add your Facebook contact list to almost any chat client or web chat service. Facebook has freed Facebook Chat from the constraints of your browser window, adding support for the Jabber/XMPP protocol.

Using Jabber/XMPP, the same protocol used by Gmail’s built-in IM feature Google Talk, allows you to add Facebook Chat to IM programmes like AIM, Pigin, Adium and iChat as well as a host of other Windows and Mac OS X apps.
Head on over to Facebook’s Chat Tour Pageand get some instructions for hooking up your alternate Chat apps.

2 Comments

  1. Wicked Cool Ms. Raskauskas.

    Reply
  2. Thanks, Christian. I was just asking about you the other day. Hope all is well. Thanks for checking out our site.

    Reply

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