Update New (and improved) Board Chat Channel

[Airam]

No, was doing the mIRC guide Brian posted.... Is the ice chat thing easier? Or should I even worry about it and just use the link to the chat thats on the boards now? What are the benefits to having a chat client downloaded?

 

[Kean]

No, was doing the mIRC guide Brian posted.... Is the ice chat thing easier? Or should I even worry about it and just use the link to the chat thats on the boards now? What are the benefits to having a chat client downloaded?

I downloaded icechat a couple of weeks before Brian posted his guide so I'm not to clear on the differences.

Do me a favour click on the link that's on the board now and lets see what happens. I'm in the IRC at the moment so I'll know if you have logged in.

 

[Perny]

OK... I want to change my color text to 58, but the guide above says something about scripts tab.. I don't have that
[br][/br]
Edit:
[br][/br]
^ IceChat
...........................................

 

[Buffy Summers]

Using a program gives you more features and also doesn't use any Board bandwith.

🙂

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

OK... I want to change my color text to 58, but the guide above says something about scripts tab.. I don't have that
[br][/br]
Edit:
[br][/br]
^ IceChat
...........................................

Sorry, my bad.

Buffy, could you edit my post to replace this:

Click "Options" at the top, then choose the Scripts tab.

With this:

Click "Options" at the top, choose "IceChat Editor...", then select the Scripts tab.

Thanks. That should sort out your problem PB.

 

[Brian]

I downloaded icechat a couple of weeks before Brian posted his guide so I'm not to clear on the differences.

Ok, you've caught me, I've talked mostly about what/how you can do on the network, not about the software itself.

There are a lot of reasons to use mIRC instead of the other clients.

Firstly, it comes with a huge list of pre-defined servers, making it easy to get started without having to hunt around for a good server to connect to. It is very easy to get started, and being so popular, there should be a lot of people able to help you if you get stuck.

Secondly, in recent versions it has become a lot more secure and reliable. It even supports secure connections for the people who are really concerned about privacy and security.

Thirdly, it is a client that will grow with you. As you get used to online chat you may find that you want more from your client than just displaying text on the screen and letting you send text back. You may become a channel operator, and want to automate the task of kicking people out of the chat room if they swear. You may get sick of the spam you are getting, and want to auto-filter private messages to get rid of the bulk of it. You may want to set up some highlighting for messages you might miss if you go AFK. You may even want to share some (legal, of course) files with people in the room.

mIRC will allow you to do all that and more. It is PACKED with features. Perhaps too packed. The User Interface can be personalized to a huge degree, including window transparency for desktop windows, colors and fonts either globally or on a per-window basis, and any window can be set to open outside the main client, I found this useful when chatting with someone who’s talking me through a problem. Make the window small at the bottom of the screen, and the program they’re helping me with over the rest of the screen. You can do a large amount of automation such as connection on open, autojoining of multiple channels, on multiple servers. You can set notifications when you receive messages of someone types your name, or any other phrase. It can be unobtrusively minimized to the tray and forgotten. You can set up options to notify you if someone says your name, so it’s natural that you might leave this running for long stretches. 22,000k was the average memory bite, and this increased for each background image I added. Interesting, since I have a slightly older version of mIRC running 24/7 on another machine that takes up less than half that. Interesting, indeed.

There are also tons of scripts out there for you to download, and there are even pre-modified installs of mIRC that have a lot of things set up for you, from the trivial, such as playing different sounds when certain events happen, and changing colours around, to very complicated ones that keep track of when you last saw someone online and inform other people when they type a certain question into the channel.

mIRC is, without doubt, a very powerful client. The large part of mIRC’s bulk is the advanced “scripting” (a type of programming) capability. Anything that mIRC doesn’t do, someone has probably written a script that makes it do so. mIRC is number two on our foray through the world of IRC clients. This is the client I cut my teeth on about 10 years ago when I was first introduced to IRC. mIRC has come a loooong way since then, friends and neighbors. Looking at screenshot of version 2 and looking at it now, it’s tough to tell they’re related.

 

[Brian]

Ok, somebody asked me over at IRC how do I get voice (+v) In [HASHTAG]#BuffyBoards[/HASHTAG].

People who have a + in front of their name are voiced. They have been given a voice by one of the channel operators. When the channel mode has been set to moderated, only the channel operators and the voiced people can speak. Voice is mostly used to show friendship or appreciation.

Here is how you may become a trusted (voiced) user AND keep it:

1. Contribute with meaningful and intelligent conversation when the channel is not moderated.
2. Always follow these simple rules:
   1. Don't be abusive or personally attack anyone.
   2. Don't post off topic links.
   3. Don't repeat yourself.
   4. Don't repeat your words in caps.
   5. Don't use excessive sexually explicit language.
   6. Don't abuse the bots.
   7. Don't argue with anyone, especially the ops.
3. Be responsible. Don't encourage people acting like idiots and help guide the conversation back on topic.
4. Have a registered nick.
5. DON'T ASK FOR VOICE!

 

[Spirit_Of_Fred]

dont yell at me because ive never used it, but i might for BBtv in the future, so im curious, does irc still work when the boards go down?

 

[JenniferAlice]

Ok, somebody asked me over at IRC how do I get voice (+v) In #BuffyBoards.

People who have a + in front of their name are voiced. They have been given a voice by one of the channel operators. When the channel mode has been set to moderated, only the channel operators and the voiced people can speak. Voice is mostly used to show friendship or appreciation.

Here is how you may become a trusted (voiced) user AND keep it:

1. Contribute with meaningful and intelligent conversation when the channel is not moderated.
2. Always follow these simple rules:
   1. Don't be abusive or personally attack anyone.
   2. Don't post off topic links.
   3. Don't repeat yourself.
   4. Don't repeat your words in caps.
   5. Don't use excessive sexually explicit language.
   6. Don't abuse the bots.
   7. Don't argue with anyone, especially the ops.
3. Be responsible. Don't encourage people acting like idiots and help guide the conversation back on topic.
4. Have a registered nick.
5. DON'T ASK FOR VOICE!

haha Brian, have you been to the IRC??

I kid. We are all super-duper, well behaved little kiddies.

🙂

 

[Kali]

Can anyone suggest a client for Mac? mIRC is Windows, Snax you need to pay for.... Ircle maybe? I'm using 2 MacBook Pro's and a mac Mini.

I have now printed off the thread so I have the details to get into chat if the boards go down again... I was lost!! And I missed BBtv...

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Can anyone suggest a client for Mac? mIRC is Windows, Snax you need to pay for.... Ircle maybe? I'm using 2 MacBook Pro's and a mac Mini.

I have now printed off the thread so I have the details to get into chat if the boards go down again... I was lost!! And I missed BBtv...

IRC2GO is what I used... worked off safari

 

[Kali]

Thanks - just looked at apple downloads - suggested Snak and Linkinus.... I shall investigate all 3 🙂

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Thanks - just looked at apple downloads - suggested Snak and Linkinus.... I shall investigate all 3 🙂

But dont you have to pay for those two? I could not find a free one for

.. if you do, lemme know.

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

Ok, just to let you guys know, there's some weirdness going on with the IRC tonight: the Buffybot dissappeared, and nobody can see one another. And, it makes me an OP every time I go in. I think it's cause it thinks I'm the only one there. It's probably a server issue, and so nothing you can do about it, but I just thought I'd let you know.

 

[JenniferAlice]

Yeah, I can't even connect to the IRC at the moment, weird.

 

[Lyri]

Yeah, I can't connect either. Says there's a socket issue, whatever that means.

I'll keep trying and let you guys know if and when it comes back up.

Thanks for the heads up, Five by Five.

 

[Buffy Summers]

Looks fine now. And all that stuff really isn't important to the use of the chat. But yes, the chat works if the board is down - that's one of the reasons we moved to that instead of the shoutbox.

🙂

 

[Brian]

We were suffering some route instability with savvis (our datacenter) in Los Angeles. This is causing our servers to be inaccessible from some networks such as our data center, and a number of others that utilize them for primary transit. Network engineers are working on the problem and attempting to prevent a recurrance.

Anyway, If you can't get connected to one particular IRC server and you get this error you should first give another server (irc.wetalksoccer.com) a try. The most common reasons that you can't connect to a server are (1) Due to netspilt (2) network problems with datacenter (3) the server is down. Try several other servers and see if you can get connected. If you can connect to some other servers, you should check to see if perhaps you made a typo in the setup of the server address you could not get connected to (Go to File/Connect/Servers/Edit).

If you get this error with all IRC server addresses you try, it is very likely your providers DNS (Domain Name Server) is down, malfunctioning, or very slow, especially if mIRC previously worked flawlessly for you. Aside from waiting or giving your provider's helpdesk a phone call, you could bypass the need for the DNS lookup by specifying the IP Number in your server setup instead of the IP Address for every server.

IRC needs a DNS to translate (resolve) the IRC servers' IP Address into an IP Number. For example, the IP Address irc.law.emory.edu resolves to the IP Number 170.140.50.195. Once you get IRC back up and running, you can see the IP number of an IP Address by typing in the command "/dns irc.law.emory.com".

Under File/Connect/Servers/Add or Edit server, specify your IRC servers like :
Description : irc.law.emory.edu (Emory University)
IRC Server : 170.140.50.195
Port : 6667

We apologize for the inconvienance and thank you for your understanding. 🙂

 

[Sweetescape]

question:
would i be at an advantage using icechat? i can't see any of the (sw) emoticons and stuff. I normally just click "chat" at the top to get into the chat am i really missing out?. I'm hesitant to download things just for the sake of a few emoticons and being able to change the colour of my text.

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

question:
would i be at an advantage using icechat? i can't see any of the (sw) emoticons and stuff. I normally just click "chat" at the top to get into the chat am i really missing out?. I'm hesitant to download things just for the sake of a few emoticons and being able to change the colour of my text.

Well, there are a few major advantages.

1. An external client (like IceChat or mIRC) will still work if and when the boards are down.
2. An external client will launch in a seperate window. This gives you much more flexibility, as you are not tied to a tab/window in your browser.
3. It's just plain easier to use. Yes, the chat app is brilliant, and I'm glad it's there, but IceChat is far more flexible.
4. If you go for IceChat, then you will see all of the emoticons people use. It's just less confusing. Also, you can have your own text colour. This is a huge benefit when it gets busy, as people instatntly recognise your posts.
5. It looks prettier.

These are, of course, a layperson's responses. I'm sure there are a myriad of technical implications. But, for a small, free, clean download, you get quite a range of benefits.