Internet Chat

The basic concept of chatting is that you type a message on your screen, 
and within a second or two it appears on your chat partner's screen. This 
way you can carry on a conversation in almost real-time. Chatting on the 
Internet can be great fun, and you may make some new friends while you are 
at it. It is also a very cost effective way to communicate with friends and 
family that have moved away, maybe even half way around the planet. In this 
tutorial we will cover some of the available methods, starting with the 
oldest, IRC chat, and progressing to some of the newer methods like Instant 
Messaging programs and ICQ. 

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

What is IRC?

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a vast network of clients (users) and servers 
and can be thought of as a mass text based teleconferencing system. The 
clients are connected to the servers, which are connected to each other in 
a kind of expanding tree like structure so that all points on the network 
are linked. Some of the servers don't have clients connected to them but 
act as hubs and routers for switching and relaying the data to other 
servers. When you sent text to a channel on IRC, the message is sent to 
each server that has clients on the particular channel, and each server 
then relays the message to its clients. The message will only be sent to 
the servers that have clients on the particular channel, and only those 
clients on the channel will receive the message. Thinking about the path 
that these messages have to take to get to all the servers and the fact 
that it must be relayed to all servers with clients on the channel and then 
to all clients on the channel, it is easy to understand why the concept of 
"lag" occurs. If one or more of these servers isn't doing the job of 
relaying properly, it can take considerable time for all clients to see the 
message. (not to mention that there can be lag along the path the client is 
connected to the IRC server itself, as often there are many hops (routing 
servers) in the path to get to the IRC server from your ISP. Typically, 
your chat messages must pass through 10 or more hops just to get to the IRC 
server.) 

How do I get on IRC?

First of all, you need IRC client software. The best part of IRC is, it is 
platform independent. It doesn't matter what operating system you are 
running, there is an IRC client for you. Even if you connect to the 
Internet via a Unix shell account, there will be an IRC client available 
for you on the shell. My favorite IRC client (for Windows) is by far mIRC, 
written by Khaled Mardam Bey. It is shareware, but there is no time limit 
for registration. You can download mIRC from http://www.mirc.co.uk. 

mIRC is very easy to install and does not make any changes to your system. 
It is one of the few programs I know of these days that just runs out of 
its own directory (default c:\mirc). It is also highly configurable by the 
user, with an advanced scripting interface, though you don't need to worry 
about that at the outset; it is very easy to operate if all you wish to do 
is chat. 

Now that you have an IRC client, you have to decide which chat network you 
wish to connect to. My favorite is DalNet, but there are many others. The 
very first thing you must familiarize yourself with is the Options menu. It 
will pop up the very first time you open mIRC and you must enter some 
information and choose a server to connect to from the drop list. I 
recommend that you do not enter your real personal info, choose a nickname 
to use (you'll know it if it's already in use on the network when you go to 
connect and your secondary nick will be used) and for your real name enter 
something witty. It is also a good idea to enter a fake email address. If 
you enter real info here, people will be able to obtain it easily. To get 
back to where these settings are in mIRC at any time, go to File/Options 
and then highlight Connect in the tree on the left pane of the options 
menu. Expand all the + signs and click the categories to view all the 
available options. 

Choose a server from the list in connect options. There are many IRC 
networks and servers, but not all of them in the list will work for you. 
Some may no longer be in service, or you might just not have a connection 
to them from your domain. The most popular networks are DalNet, Effnet and 
Undernet with tens of thousands of users at any given time. When you get 
connected to an IRC server, you must join a channel that you think will 
interest you. In mIRC you can get a list of channels by clicking the icon 
on the toolbar that looks like a globe. Hover your mouse on the icons to 
see the tool tip descriptions. 

In theory, all clients connected to servers on that network should be able 
to see and communicate with each other. If you are experiencing lag (delay) 
with the people you are talking to, try switching to another server on that 
network (preferably the same server that they are using). To see what 
server they are connected to, use the /whois command. Commands in mIRC are 
typed in a chat window (the status window or a channel window). The 
preceding slash indicates that it is a command and it will not be displayed 
in the chat. 

/whois nick 

Now that you have found some friends to talk to, you already know which 
channel you want to get back to. You don't have to go through the procedure 
of getting the channel list and scrolling through it to find the channel. 
You can add it to the mIRC channel list by clicking the folder icon with 
the # sign in the toolbar and then double click the entry, or you can 
manually join the channel. For example, if you were talking to Crazygerman 
and Grogan in #winmag's_lounge on DalNet and you did a /whois and saw that 
we were using vancouver.dal.net you could connect to the server and join 
the channel using the following commands: 

/server vancouver.dal.net 7000    (7000 is the port number, it's optional) 

Once connected to the server, use: 

/join #winmag's_lounge 

If you are connected to a server on a network, and wish to get a list of 
servers that are linked to the network, use the following command: 

/links 

This will open the "links" window and retrieve all the servers that are 
linked to the server you are presently on. Double click one of these 
servers in the links window, and you will connect to that server. Note that 
you cannot connect to servers labeled as "Hub servers" or "Routing 
servers". Keep trying until you find a good one. When you find one that 
works well for you, add it to the server list (click the setup options icon 
or go to file/setup options and you will see a drop down list of servers. 
Click the Add button and enter the server in the list.) 

This is enough to get you started chatting on IRC. As with any tutorial on 
this site, if you have specific questions about mIRC or IRC chat in 
general, feel free to post questions on the PC Q&A Forum 

Instant Messenger Programs

Another popular method of Internet chat are various Instant Messaging 
programs. They are basically communications services that alert you when 
people on your "friends list" or "buddy list" are online and allow you to 
send and receive messages and chat with your contacts. Some examples of 
these clients are Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. 
They all basically do the same thing, however currently there is no 
standard and one client cannot access the networks of the other clients. 

You will have to make a choice as to which client you want to use. Base 
your decision on what your friends are using, and/or by viewing screen 
captures and reading about the features that each has to offer. I will tell 
you though, that Yahoo Messenger has some very nice features. You can 
customize various tabs to display stock market figures, news, sports 
scores, weather info, bookmarks and more! Another advantage to the Yahoo 
Messenger is that it allows voice chat if you have a microphone plugged 
into the jack on your sound card. Currently, the other two competing 
programs do not have this feature. 

To Download: 

Yahoo! Messenger - http://messenger.yahoo.com 

MSN Messenger - http://messenger.msn.com 

AOL Instant Messenger - http://aim.aol.com 

Once you install one of these clients, the first time you open the program 
you will be prompted to register and create a username for yourself. It 
must be unique, so don't be disappointed if you can't use the name you 
want. You will have to settle for some variation of it. For example, when I 
went to register for Yahoo Messenger, just about every variation of Grogan 
was taken. I then decided to use TheRealGrogan as my nickname. 

After you have registered a unique name, you need to add your friends to 
your contact list. If you already know their username, it is a snap; choose 
to Add a user in your program and enter their unique name. If you do not 
know what name they use, each of these programs has a search function at 
their Web site that can be launched from within the program or accessed at 
the site. 

When your contacts come online, typically you will be notified by a sound 
and you will see them as active in your contact list. If they are offline, 
you can send them a message and they will receive it as soon as they 
connect to the server. If they are online, you can chat and/or send and 
receive files. Most of these programs also allow a conference type chat, 
where multiple users can participate. 

What if someone is bothering you? Well in that case, you can add them to 
your ignore list and delete them from your contact list if they are on it. 
Right click on one of your contacts and you will see the available actions 
you can take, including chat, send a file, send a message and 
delete/ignore. It is very easy to operate these programs. 

Now, let's move on to another Instant Messaging program that is very 
popular and has many features. 

ICQ - An Instant Messenger on Steroids

ICQ is sort of an acronym for "I Seek You". Like the Instant Messenger 
programs discussed, it uses a contact list and alerts you when your 
contacts are online. Also like the other programs, the first time you 
launch it you will be prompted to register a name on the network. It does 
not have to be unique though, as in addition to your nickname you will be 
assigned a unique UIN (Universal Internet Number). You will be prompted to 
enter information in your user profile (which you can change at any time), 
you do not need to fill out all the fields and only need supply the info 
you want other users to see. You can download ICQ at 
http://www.mirabilis.com 

While it is easy and user friendly, this program will take some getting 
used to. You may find it a bit weird and intimidating at first, with all 
the options and settings. Don't worry, it will operate just fine with the 
default settings until you learn what options are available. There are, 
however, decent instructions and FAQ pages at the above site. Another thing 
I should mention is that this program is almost always in beta (a version 
that is still being tested), and there may be a few "bugs". Don't let that 
stop you from getting it though, it is a lot of fun and won't likely cause 
any problems on your system. It can be uninstalled from add/remove programs 
or from the program group on the start menu and will not leave too much of 
a mess behind. 

How do I start ICQ?

If you selected the option during installation, ICQ will load it's Net 
Detect Agent at startup. As soon as you connect to the Internet, ICQ will 
launch and connect to the server. If you are like me and do not allow 
programs to load components at startup, you can launch ICQ from the start 
menu. If you change your mind, you can change the setting and have ICQ load 
the Net Detect Agent at startup. When ICQ is open and minimized, it resides 
in the system tray area. Double click the green flower icon to bring up the 
program and hover your mouse over the ICQ button to see a silly little 
animation. Click the button to see the menu. Move the mouse to Preferences 
and Security and choose Preferences. Click the Connection tab and you will 
see the checkbox to load ICQ at startup. Take a look around at the menus on 
the tabs, there are a lot of settings! This isn't all the settings either. 
There are more settings under security and privacy. If you lose track of 
which settings you have changed, don't panic, there is a button on every 
options dialogue to restore all default ICQ settings. 

Add Users to your Contact List

To add users to your contact list, simply click the Add Users button and 
you will be presented with a dialogue to search for the user you wish to 
add. If you know their UIN number, it will be instantaneous. If you do not 
know their UIN there is still a good chance that you will find them by 
entering other info in the fields. For example, you can try searching for 
the nick name that you know they use. If it is too common, this might not 
find them as it will only display 40 matches. If you can add more info like 
their real name or email address you can track them down. Once you have 
found them, you must send a request to add them to your contact list. 
Double click on their name in the list in the search results to send the 
request. Depending on how they are configured, they may have to authorize 
your request, in which case they will receive the request next time they 
are online and can accept it. You will be notified. By default, ICQ will 
accept authorization requests automatically. I recommend that you change 
that setting so that you must authorize requests, to maintain privacy and 
avoid users that may potentially pester the living daylights out of you. To 
change that setting, click the ICQ button and move the mouse to Preferences 
and Security and choose Security and Privacy. On the security tab, you will 
see the radio button setting "My Authorization is Required". While you are 
in there, click the Ignore List tab and you will see more settings. If 
privacy is desired you can choose the setting "Accept messages only from 
users on my contact list" and "Do not accept multi-recipient messages 
from" (drop down list). This will eliminate the spam and chain messages 
that you might receive. Other interesting settings in here are the 
"Invisible List" and "Visible List". These allow you to specify which users 
in your contact list can see you when you are in visible mode and invisible 
mode. 

What can I do with ICQ?

Once you have users in your contact list, left click on one of them to see 
the available options. If they are online they will be in the online list, 
and if offline they will be in that list. ICQ notifies you with a "knock 
knock" sound when your contacts are online. If they are offline you can 
send messages that they will receive as soon as they are online. If they 
are online you can establish a direct chat, send files, play games, voice 
chat, view their user info, ignore, delete, launch a white board session 
(sort of like MSPaint) and more. You can even send email through the ICQ 
program, it really is quite a versatile communications program. What if you 
are already chatting with someone and another friend in your list comes 
online? You can position your chat window such that you can click on them 
in the ICQ contact list and simply drag them over top of the chat window 
and release the mouse button. That will initiate a session with them and 
bring them into the chat! If someone you have dragged into the chat has 
become a nuisance, you can kick them out. When this is initiated (from the 
menu in the chat window itself) the rest of the users in the chat session 
must all vote to kick the individual. It's fun, and you'll want to try it 
with one of your friends that agrees to it just for a laugh (though it's 
mean to gang up on and kick people that don't deserve it...it will hurt 
their feelings more than they would ever let on). What if you want to go 
back and read a message that you got a few weeks ago? Well fortunately, ICQ 
keeps a message archive all in a centralized location. Click the ICQ button 
and choose message archive from the menu. You'll find an expanding tree 
structure for different categories of messages that you have sent and 
received. Expand the tree by clicking + signs and then double click each 
entry to view the messages. Also, in addition to all the built in features, 
there are a myriad of plugins you can download for ICQ. Visit 
http://www.icq.com/plugins to see what is available. There are also third 
party plugins available from other sites. Other miscellaneous features are 
various reminders and to-do lists that you can configure. 

Change your User Profile Details

You can edit your user profile at any time. Click the ICQ button and move 
the mouse to Add/Change Current User and choose View/Change My Details. 
Click the various tabs to see all the different types of info you can 
provide. You might want to include some of your interests and hobbies so 
that others with the same interests can contact you. Then again, you may 
not want to have others contacting you with requests to add to contact 
lists, it is up to you how you want to configure ICQ. On the Main tab, it's 
a good idea to provide your real email address and check the box "Don't 
publish my email address, use it only for password retrieval" in case you 
ever forget your ICQ password. Another interesting tab in your user profile 
is the Picture tab, where you can select a JPG or BMP picture that is on 
your hard drive for sending to others that request a photo. You can 
configure it to autosend to users that request it, or not: You can set it 
to display dialogue, autosend to only users on your list or simply 
automatically decline. 

So far, all of the Internet Chat methods we've discussed involve 
downloading and installing client software. What if all you want to do is 
chat and you don't want to download software? The next section deals with 
Java Chat on the Web. 

Java Chat Sessions

You can chat with people on the World Wide Web simply by going to a site 
that hosts a Java Chat applet. The only software required is a Java capable 
Web browser, which you most likely already have. Many of the sites you 
visit have a link to chat, and what happens when you click the link is a 
Java applet loads and executes in your browser and when it finishes 
loading, fields are displayed to enter a nick and some info. Click the chat 
button and you're in! Some of the Java Chat applets are independent, some 
are linked to networks of Java Chat "channels" and some even link to IRC 
chat networks! Here are a few to get you started. 

Chat Planet - www.chatplanet.com 

Excite Chat - www.excite.com/communities 

Yahoo! Chat - chat.yahoo.com 

Dalnet IRC Java Chat - webzone.dal.net 

For more, simply type Java Chat into any search engine and you will find 
plenty of places to chat. 

I hope you enjoy chatting on the Internet. There are a few things to keep 
in mind, though. 

First of all, keep it light: Don't get too seriously involved with anyone, 
especially if they live far away from you. Lots of people like to flirt and 
that can be fun as long as it stays at that level. 

Second, don't be rude. The anonymity of the Internet sometimes prompts 
people to say things they would never say in real life. Remember that each 
nickname that you see is a real person, with real feelings that can be 
easily hurt by a few unkind words. With that said, go and chat. Have a 
great time! 


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