Pidgin and Google Apps Email Account

If you are on Linux or prefer something light instead of gtalk you can easily use Gmail account with Pidgin.

Here is a nice tutorial with screenshots from Google itself, http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=49147

However if you are using Google apps email account then you need do few extra things. (Google apps email account means any email account that you host with google)

For example you have a email address, myuser@mydomain.com

Basic Tab:
Username: myuser
Domain: mydomain
Resource: gmail.com/

Advanced Tab:
Connect server: talk.google.com

That's it folks.