The very first thing you should do is to register for a free account at a Jabber server. The setup assistant is automatically launched the first time the application is run, or you may reach it at any time while you are logged off using the Jabber/Setup Assistant menu. Just a welcome message. Press the Next button. Here you write the servers name, or if you have no clue of it, just browse a list of free Jabber servers by pressing the Get button. Pick one server here. Note that the quality of service may vary! Now you should have a Jabber servers name here before you continue. Pick a user name and password you want to use. If the username is already occupied, you'll get a notice of this when trying to register. The next screen lets you register by pressing the Register Now button. Just to compile things before you register. If it looks OK press the New button. If a dialog says that it was OK, then just continue. If it made a complaint it was likely due to that the username was busy. Just pick another name, enter it into this dialog, and press New again. If everything went OK so far you just press the Connect button in your Roster window. You need to manually connect (login) each time you start a session. The fields should be already prepared with server, username, and password for you. Just press the Login button.