Using Facebook Chat on Palm Centro or Palm OS
By Tony Cheung, Chatopus
Aug 6, 2009
Facebook Chat
The official Facebook client is available for Palm OS platform. However, it does not support the Facebook Chat feature. The mobile facebook website does not support it either. You will need a 3rd party solution. In this article, we are going to show you how to access Facebook Chat on Palm Centro or Palm OS with an instant messaging client called Chatopus.
Access Facebook Chat by Nimbuzz and Chatopus
You could use Facebook chat on Palm OS via Nimbuzz. Nimbuzz is a mobile social messaging service, which lets you call and chat on many instant messaging and social networks, including Facebook. However, it does not provide any official client for Palm OS. You will need Chatopus for that.
Create Nimbuzz Account
If you do not have a Nimbuzz account yet, you can create one quickly with a desktop web browser by visiting http://www.nimbuzz.com/en/web/login. You can then use Nimbuzz's Webchat to add your Facebook login to it. To do so, go to the Contact Manager, choose Facebook and then enter your Facebook's account and password there.
Configure Chatopus for Nimbuzz
You will need Chatopus version 2.50 or above on your Palm OS device. In the Account Setup, choose Nimbuzz for the account type. Then enter an account name you like and then click Next. Finally, fill-in your Nimbuzz's username and password to go online.
(Since Sept 2010) Please change Host field to use o.nimbuzz.com instead of xmpp00.nimbuzz.com.
Native Chatting Client
You can see your online Facebook friends and their names. You can chat with your Facebook friends with a native instant messaging client on Palm OS. For example, you can remain online in Facebook Chat while running other applications in Palm OS. You can get audible and vibration alerts on incoming messages. You also have local message history with Global Find. In the contact list view, you can easily jump to a contact by pressing its first character on your keyboard.
Nimbuzz also supports other popular instant messaging networks, including Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo. For one contact list, you can use Chatopus to connect with all of them. Nimbuzz services are free to use. They also offer desktop clients for both PC Windows and Mac.
Future Improvements
For offline Facebook friends, you can only see their ID numbers, instead of names. You also could not see your Facebook friends' status messages, except whether they are offline or online. The "Info" button is also not working and you will not be able to retrieve other users' profile information (including profile photos). All these would require better Nimbuzz support on its XMPP interface.