Can We Chat?
WHAT YOU NEED TO PARTICIPATE
Continued from THE FEEL OF INTERNET CHAT
If you want to engage in Chat, you need an IRC client. Aside from the Microsoft and Netscape offerings mentioned above, you have your pick of good ones. The Windows95.com, TUCOWS, and ZDNet sites offer several for download, and whether you're a Windows 3.x, Windows 95, or Windows NT user, you'll be well served. The most cited IRC clients for Windows appear to be mIRC (www.mirc.co.uk) and PIRCH (www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~frappa/pirch.html), which is shown in Figure 1.
When you start your IRC client, your first task is to select a Chat server to which to connect. If you're using mIRC or one of several other Windows clients, a list of servers will be included. Try any one of them. Once your client reaches the server, you'll be asked what channel, or topic area, you're interested in joining. As soon as you select one, you can start typing. The people on that channel will be told that you've arrived, and everything you say at this stage will be broadcast to all other users on the channel.
By typing /HELP (all IRC commands begin with the forward-slash character), or by exploring your client's menus, you can perform a number of additional tasks. You can start directing comments to specific users, for example, thus beginning a side conversation, or you can query the Chat server for information about a user. You can invite users to join a channel, and you can even create your own channel. Some IRC clients let you bypass the IRC server and engage directly with a particular user, and some even let you grant access to your files (this one requires caution, of course!).
If you want to host a Chat service, you'll need a server, and as with a Web server, the machine must have a dedicated IP address. Ideally, the machine should be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, because IRC never quits. It's possible to offer a private Chat service, which could be useful in your organization. But the basis of IRC is public chat, so we'll stick with the universal access model.
As mentioned, Chat servers are available for machines running IIS 3.0. Also available for NT servers is the advanced server ConferenceRoom, from Webmaster (www.webmaster.com). IChat offers its own server, called ROOMS, but it's expensive--$995, compared with $99 to $249 for ConferenceRoom. IChat's greatest selling point is a Netscape plug-in that lets you conduct Chat sessions directly in the browser, but you can do so only through the ROOMS server. All three servers support standard IRC clients.
Continues...
Published as Internet Tools in the 05/27/97 issue of PC Magazine.
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