So I’m doing more and more work on Linux these days and I’ve got an Ubuntu installation set up for that purpose.  Really it’s just a fun way for me to get a break from the Windows 7 world and develop in a new environment.  Anyhow… I ran into an issue with getting my Google Apps chat accounts working with Empathy.  I did some research online and didn’t come up with any solutions quickly, suggesting that the answer is harder to find than it should be!

Then I remembered that using other clients the Google certificate always gave a warning.  So, all you have to do is check “Ignore SSL certificate errors” and use the normal account setup beyond that and everything works flawlessly.  For reference, the normal account setup is:

Login ID: [your full e-mail address]

Advanced
Encryption required (TLS/SSL): checked
Ignore SSL certificate errors: checked
Resource: [whatever you want it to be]
Priority: 0

Override server settings
Server: talk.google.com
Port: 5222