We have an Instant Message (IM) service running on the Summersoft server that uses the Jabber protocol to communicate between users.
The Jabber protocol is now an Internet Standard and is intended to eventually supercede all the other IM protocols.
Many IM clients have the ability to communicate with a Jabber (XMPP) protocol server. A list of some of these clients is here.
To connect to our server, set your client for the Jabber protocol, make sure it is set for "secure" mode with TLS on port 5222 or SSL mode on port 5223, and point the client to our Jabber server at summersoft.fay.ar.us.
The first time you connect to the Jabber server you need to register a new user account. If your client doesn't have the ability to register a new user (a lot of Jabber clients can't, for some reason), then register a new Jabber user here. After you register the new user then you can connect to that user on the Jabber server at summersoft.fay.ar.us.
It is suggested that you set your Jabber user name to the same name as your account on summersoft.fay.ar.us. For instance, David Summers would have a Jabber account of david@summersoft.fay.ar.us.
NOTE:
Any Jabber server can connect with any other Jabber server automatically, so if you need to IM a friend at another Jabber server, you don't need to create an account on their server to do that. You can just specifiy their Jabber account name and their server. For example, if I need to talk to user steve at the summersplace.com server, I can just specifiy a IM "buddy" of steve@summersplace.com and our server will automatically contact the remote server and send messages back and forth.
To connect to another service "transport", such as AOL AIM or MSN, you need a Jabber client with the ability to do Jabber "Service Discovery". The only one that I know of currently that works cross-platform on Linux, MAC OS X, and Windows is PSI.
Once you register with the transport then you may go back to using your normal Jabber client. PSI is a nice Jabber client but if you are used to another one then go ahead and use that one (GAIM, Trillian, iChat, etc.).
To connect with the AIM transport to talk to other AIM users requires an extra step from the Jabber client to "register" your AOL AIM "screen name" and password with the AIM transport. At that point, every time you log in to your account on our Jabber Server at summersoft.fay.ar.us you will also be able to connect to and talk with your AIM "buddies". To do this you need to use a Jabber Client (PSI) that does Jabber "Service Discovery". You select this option and double-click on the AIM transport in the list of discovered services. This should then ask you for your AIM screen name and password. Once that is correctly supplied then your list of AIM buddies should be added to your list of contacts.
To connect with the MSN transport to talk to other MSN users requires an extra step from the Jabber client to "register" your MSN account name and password with the MSN transport. At that point, every time you log in to your account on our Jabber Server at summersoft.fay.ar.us you will also be able to connect to and talk with your MSN contacts. To do this you need to use a Jabber Client (PSI) that does Jabber "Service Discovery". You select this option and double-click on the MSN transport in the list of discovered services. This should then ask you for your MSN screen name and password. Once that is correctly supplied then your list of MSN buddies should be added to your list of contacts.
For administrators, the Jabber server (OpenFire) administration can be handled from here.
Jabber "transports" in addition to AOL AIM and MSN that will connect to other IM services such as GoogleTalk, ICQ, Yahoo, etc. This will allow us to have one client that handles the Jabber protocol and with that you can connect your on-line Jabber "presence" to the other services such that you only have to specifiy one connection and still have access to all the other services.
Another feature that we hope to have soon is security between Jabber servers.