Reading Gator's Ramble reminded me about something... Who here has experienced IRC? *waits for hands to go up, not that she can see them* RIGHT!! *dresses in professor attire* Internet Relay Chat, shorter form "IRC" is well..a place for chatting. You know..all those chatrooms that people tell you to be careful of? Many of those are on *dramatic pause* IRC! And low and behold, this past weekend I went home, fired up the old chat program and found..A TRIGUN CHATROOM! My first big break on the internet, so to speak, was on IRC chatrooms. They were fun, allowed me to open up and be myself. And I made a nice number of friends who I still talk to today! (Which keeping a friend you've never seen for..well, since 1998, is a pretty good feat.) But to finally find a Trigun chatroom! Yay! Which I must plug it, because I said I would. It is #Trigun on the Webmaster IRC server. Now Gator says she uses mIRC. I happen to use pIRCh, which I think is a more advanced program, but I could be wrong. Either of these chat programs can be downloaded from either www.mirc.com or www.pirch.com. Easy enough? Try them both to see which is best for you. Then all you need to do when logging on is enter a screename to use, choose what chat server you want to be on, and log on. Be very careful with screenames though, uniqueness is a MUST. I cannot stress this enough. If you try to log on using "Sarah," "Turtle," or even "Vash" (and probably "VashTheStampede"), most likely the thing will tell you that that name is registered to someone and you must supply the password. Which you cant' do if someone else "owns" that name. That's right..names can be registered. Right now I have the nickname "Chalupa" registered..don't ask why. I'll talk more about the commands used for "registering" later. Joining a room can also be a pain. Unless you know the name of a good room it's rather hard to find...a good room. There are options for listing the rooms on that server, but I don't recommend that unless you're REALLY desperate or have a REALLY fast computer. Because by now there are so many chatrooms on the servers that there's a good chance you'll be disconnected before the thing gets to list ALL of the chatrooms. A couple popular servers on IRC are Webmaster and Dalnet. I mostly stick to Webmaster unless I know of a chatroom elsewhere that I really want to visit. IRC Commands Let's skip right to the chase. Commands for IRC, there are so many. Ones for joining rooms, ones for registering names, ones for registering chatrooms, etc.. Many of these commands are run through two IRC services. Nickserv and Chanserv. But first: Basics "Just the facts, ma'am." When typing a command it must ALWAYS be started with this character: "/" That's right..the slash that's in a lot of URLs, not the quotations marks. Without that slash, the command..won't be a command. I'm just going to list out simple commands now. Joining a Room /join #variable - Rooms are always marked by the number sign. "#" Without it, it isn't a room. You could joing #Trigun or #Buglite (a trivia channel), there are many, many more. Changing your Screename /nick variable - If your first nickname doesn't work, you can try changing it to something else. *shrug* Doing and Action /action does something stupid - This will take a line out of first person, so instead of it looking "Chalupa: does something stupid" it will look, "Chalupa does something stupid." Isn't that special? You can also do this by typing "/me" in place of "/action" Signing Off /Quit - Exactly what it looks like, you just quit using IRC. ^o^ Nickserv Commands Nickserv has everything to do with nickname registration... Registering a Nickname /Nickserv register password [email protected] - If a nickname is not yet registered, here's how you make it yours. Actually, it may only be Webmaster that asks for e-mail..why I don't know, I've never gotten junkmail from IRC. You make up your own password by the way. And I believe that if you don't go on IRC for like..20 days, then your registration is dropped. Sucks, don't it? Identifying Yourself /Nickerv Identify Nickname Password - Nickserv asking you to identify for a name you have registered for? Just type this to give it your nickname and password and you should be in the clear. (Usually with an IRC program it can save you password for you.) For any other tricky nickserv commands just type: /Nickserv help Chanserv Commands Chanserv has everything to do with chatroom registration... Registering a Chatroom /Chanserv Register #chatroom password description - Assuming a room name isn't already registered, you can register your own. It's a lot like registering a nickname. If a chatroom is not visited by an operator for 20 days it will lose its registration. Identifying Ownership /Chanserv Identify #chatroom password - For whenever you need to identify a chatroom as being your own. A lot like identifying a nickname. Be CAREFUL, do NOT give out the room's password to anybody, or at least be VERY careful with those you do give it out to. Chatrooms can be taken over by mean people, and it's a hard thing to deal with. (I have my own war stories.) For any other tricky chanserv commands just type: /Chanserv help There are some other commands, but I'm done for now. There was your education for the day.

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