With all of these updates being made, you’ll no longer be able to sign into your AIM account inside of Gmail. You can now import all of your AIM buddies right into Gmail by using AIMs import feature.

A. In the screenshot above you can see the chat history for my account. You can access your chat history by clicking on the Chats label located on the Navigation pane.

Note: I used Google Chat within the Gmail window in the browser for this tutorial.

1. Click on Actions and click on 2. Go off the record from the menu.

A. You will see a message within the chat window stating that the conversation is now off the record. The person you are chatting with will see the same message.

You are now off the record.

3. You or the other person can cancel the Off the Record mode by clicking on Cancel or using the Action menu.

A. You will see the following message when Off the Record is cancelled – This chat is no longer off the record.

Note: In order to use this feature you must have Gmail with Chat enabled

1. While using Gmail , click on the Settings link located on the top right corner of the screen.

2. Click on the Chat tab. Select the equipment you are using in the Voice and video chat section. You can chose;

• Camera
• Microphone
• Speakers

Click on Verify your settings

Note: Gmail does a pretty good job of figuring out which of the devices to use, so the defaults should be ok.

3. When the Verify your settings section expands you will be able to confirm that your devices are working properly.

• Video will be displayed on the right
• The microphone can be tested by speaking into the mic and checking for the indicator
• The speakers can be tested by clicking on the play the test sound link.

4. Once you have made your changes and verified that settings are working, click on the Save Changes button to proceed.

5. When you are done you can now you can use video chat within Gmail to speak with others online. To start a video chat, click on the buddy you wish to speak to and click on the arrow next to Video & more and click on Start video chat.

"Millions of you use Google Talk every day to connect with friends, family, and colleagues via chat and calls. Today we’re releasing a new version of Google Talk that introduces several more ways to share and connect. You can download it here.

File transfer – This has consistently been the top requested feature, and we’ve worked hard to make the experience simple, fast, and fun. You can share any type of file, several at a time if you like. We think the photo sharing experience is especially fun.

Voicemail – The name of this feature doesn’t do it justice. Yes, you can now leave voicemails for any of your Google Talk contacts when they don’t answer a call, but I think the coolest thing is that you can easily record voice notes and send them to anyone you know by just adding their email address to your contact list — they don’t even have to be running Google Talk. This is a fun and easy way to just say hello, send someone a reminder, or even sing your mom happy birthday! Also, our friends on the Gmail team have added a slick voicemail playback experience within Gmail.

Music status sharing – Show your friends what music you listen to and discover new music that your friends are into (or discover that they spend their entire day listening to Barry Manilow… hmm). We also thought it would be fun for you to see the musical tastes of the broader community. So you now have the option of sharing your music listening history with Google, to be included in the rankings of our new Google Labs project called Music Trends."

Some screenshots below…