There's people who like to talk, about any subject, so they say that the IRC is the best thing of the Internet. Other people say that the IRC is a waste of time, and the risk to meet a lot of atypical people. Personally, I belong to the first group, but, who doesn't like to talk, just don't talk!

IRC works like this: there's a lot of IRC servers around the Net. There are two main IRC networks: EfNet, and UnderNet. In each network, all the servers are interconnected, so if you are using one, you can be talking with someone who's connected to the same server or to another. When you connect yourself to some server, you must join a channel. The channel is the subject of the conversation. You can "open" a new channel, too. To try, you can join to the #portugal channel (instead of portugal, you may look for the channel of your country) or to the #macintosh one. Even if you are not interested on these themes, try to join them to learn how the IRC works. A channel is always written with a # before the name.

On an IRC session you can talk to everyone who is on the channel or just to one person. You may also do an DCC session, with the point of transferring files between you and other person, or between you and a server.

The people who read this page some time ago know I used to recommend Homer, but... I changed! I changed the network (before, I used EfNet, but now I prefer the UnderNet) and the client program. I use ircle now. I think the interface is worst, but it has less bugs, and more funcionality. To get ircle, go to http://www.xs4all.com/~ircle (the newest version is the 2.5).

To configurate the program, choose Preferences... . Here, you may choose the server you want to use. To join a channel, use the Join... command. You may write the channel, with a # before, on the window that just appeared on the screen, and click on the OK button. After some seconds, a window will appear with the choosed channel.

To learn more, you may go to the ircle's site or you may choose Help. Here are some servers around this little world:

EfNet USA: irc.bu.edu irc.colorado.edu piglet.cc.utexas.edu Canada: irc.mcgill.ca Europe: irc.funet.fi cismhp.univ-lyon1.fr irc.ethz.ch irc.nada.kth.se sokrates.informatik.uni-kl.de bim.itc.univie.ac.at Australia: jello.qabc.uq.oz.au Japan: endo.wide.ad.jp

UnderNet Usually, the name of the server is x.undernet.org, where x is the country code of your location. For example: us.undernet.org - USA eu.undernet.org - Europe fr.undernet.org - France pt.undernet.org - Portugal NL.undernet.org - It's an Euopean server, very good and very fast.

NOTE: Some of these servers may be not working.

It's better to connect to a server near you, because, for example, the server irc.funet.fi (the equivalent one on the UnderNet is eu.undernet.org) accepts only a certain number of users from *.edu.

To have a private talk with someone on the same channel, on the command window, type /msg xxx text, where xxx is the person's nickname, and text is the message.

You may type a lot of commands in the input window. Here are some of the most important ones: (every command must be typed with a / on the beggining, or else they will be taken as a message to the channel, and that may be embarassing sometimes)

In every command, replace <nick> by the person's nickname.

Command:	Description
/whois <nick>	Displays information about the person. It may also be used to know if the person you want is, on that moment, on the IRC.
/msg <nick> <message>	Sends a private message to someone, where <message> is the message.
/query <nick>	Opens a new window that allows you to talk privately with other person.
/join #channel	It's used to join a channel. It's an alternative to the Join... command. Do not forget the #.
/who #channel	Shows the people who is on that channel.
/list	Displays a list of the active channels. ATTENTION! It may take several minutes via modem, and the server usually drops the connection, because it's too many information.
/dcc chat <nick>	Opens a new window (like query), but directly between you and the other person, without using the server. It's used on file transfers.
/dcc send <nick>	Sends a file to that person.
/dcc get <nick>	Tells the computer to be ready to receive a file.
It's better to turn everything related with dcc to automatic, on the Preferences. The manual transfers are very confusing.
/me <message>	Sends a message to the channel, with your nickname replacing /me, and with the message after it. For example: /me says hi to everyone! will make the following line appear on the channel: M_Arroz says hi to everyone! (M_Arroz is my nickname)
/ctcp <nick> version	Displays the version of the program used by the other person.
/ctcp <nick> time	It displays the clock of the other computer.
To use these ctcp comands, you must give permission to ircle, choosing it on the Preferences. Here you may also choose if you want your computer to anwser the ctcp's sent by the other guys.
/ignore <nick>	If someone is sending you a lot of private messages, you may type this command with his/hers nickname. It tells the computer to ignore the messages that are coming from that person.
/away <message>	If you want to go away for a while, you may use this command to leave a message that will be sent to everyone who sends you private pessages (/msg). To stop this, type /away without any message.

Refering to your behaviour, it's obvious! Do not insult the other people, do not swear, and so on. Above all: have a decent behaviour! :-)

To know everything about the IRC, and to consult an updated servers list, you can browse the IRC FAQ.

This page was made by Miguel Arroz. If you find any problem, please e-mail me!

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