University of Texas at Arlington

Maverick Instant Messaging
Powered by Jabber

The University of Texas at Arlington offers the Jabber Instant Messaging service to our students, faculty and staff.

About Jabber

Jabber is an instant messenger application like Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and MSN Messenger.

Most commercially-supported instant messaging services prevent their users from communicating with users of competing products (often requiring you to maintain multiple accounts to stay in contact with all of your buddies). Jabber was developed as an open standard with compatibility in mind.

Jabber-based software is deployed on thousands of servers across the Internet and is used by over ten million people worldwide, according to the Jabber Software Foundation. Accounts on the UT Arlington Maverick Instant Messaging service can communicate with accounts on any other Jabber server.

What is my Jabber ID?

A JabberID (or JID) is like an email address. It's the way messages are routed to you. UT Arlington JIDs are based on your NetID. The format is netid@talk.uta.edu (example: beamaverick@talk.uta.edu).

Some Jabber clients require a full userid (netid@talk.uta.edu) while others only require the short name (netid without the @talk.uta.edu) when setting up a Jabber client for the first time. If you set up a client on a new machine and it does not populate with your buddy list, try to edit the username by either adding or removing the "@talk.uta.edu".

Download the client

Because the Jabber protocol is open, clients have been implemented on multiple platforms. Clients are availble for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. Not all clients will implement the same features. Some clients allow you to chat with multiple protocols simultaneously.

Common Clients
  Adium Pidgin Psi Spark
 Windows
-
 Mac OS
*
 Linux
-

* Macintosh users can run Pidgin using Apple's X11 interface but we recommend Mac users try iChat or Adium instead as they run under the native Mac OS X GUI, Aqua.

Mac OS 10.4 and above users have the option of using the default iChat client for jabber conversations. Be aware that you must configure iChat initially for either AOL or .Mac Instant Messaging. You can then configure iChat for jabber as well.

How should I configurure my client?

Basic Setup
Advanced Setup
Server
talk.uta.edu
Username
Your UT Arlington NetID
Connect Server
talk.uta.edu
Port Number
5222
Security
Use TLS Encryption, if possible

How do I add Buddies to my list?

You must know a buddy's Jabber ID in order to add them to your Buddy List. For privacy reasons, there is no address book of all UT Arlington jabber users. You may list your account, if you desire, on another listing service.

You may chat with jabber users at other organizations, such a Google Talk, as long as you know the jabber address of your buddy (example: joe@jabber.example.edu). Many universities and corporations maintain their own Jabber servers with rules governing how they may be used. Please be sure you're using them properly.


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