Hey ho people, it's that blatent IRC plug again This post is a short summary/rip of my earlier post that I made a while ago to help people get onto IRC and get all you science people chatting. There's been a bit of talk in the moderator section about this, and we've decided to use my IRC server for the time being - that is, until something better turns up.

 

For those who know what I'm talking about, here are the connection details:

 

Server: irc.blackcobalt.net (standard port 6667)

Channel: #sfn

 

However, for those unfamiliar to IRC, it's not all that complex. Before I say anything else, IRC stands for "Internet Relay Chat", so I think you can work out what its use is. An IRC network comprises of a number of servers that are linked together. You choose a nickname, and join one or more channels on the network to talk to other people with. It's a little more complex than that, but that's all you really need to know.

 

The network we're on at the moment (blackcobalt.net) runs a nickname and channel management system. Basically, it enables you to register a particular nicknames and channels as being used so that other people can't steal them. It's completely optional, but I suggest if you're gonna come on there a lot, you register your nickname. So that the services know you are who you say you are, you choose a password, and identify for that nickname when you connect to the network. More on that in a minute.

 

First, let's get you connected. If you have Windows, I suggest you go to http://www.mirc.com/ and grab yourself a copy of mIRC. This is an IRC client that will allow you to connect to a server. There are others, but this is a good one for beginners. You'll need to change a few options on there (such as choosing a nickname), but it's all fairly straightforward. There's a lot of guides out there, please have a look first! In the main server console, you can just type /server irc.blackcobalt.net to connect to the server.

 

A little more about IRC technical stuff; to join channels and private message people, you have to use a command. Commands always begin with a "/", and can accept various parameters; they also have pretty intuitive names. For example, "/join #sfn" will make you join the channel #sfn, "/nick asdasd" will change your nickname to asdasd, and so on. (Also note that all channel names are preceeded by # - for example, #asd2, #sfn, #blackcobalt, etc).

 

If it tells you that your nickname is in use, you'll need to change it. If you get a message from NickServ (the nickname service) that this nickname is registered, you'll need to find another nickname to use. You can change nicks with /nick <newnick> - leaving out the < and the >. When you're connected, type /join #sfn to join our channel.

 

Services

 

To register your nickname, type: /msg nickserv register <password> <e-mail address> (without using the < and >). To identify for a nickname when you've registered it, type: /msg nickserv identify password - obviously you need to replace "password" with the password you've chosen.

 

If you do have any other issues, I should be around for a fair amount of time, and you can always join #blackcobalt which is our support channel. I hope you have a fun time, and PLEASE make sure you at least give it a go and spread the word.

 

Cheers

I can avoid all of that using Trillian's IRC client.

 

Am I missing out on anything?

 

OK...I'm stupid....I tried what you said and ended up in some scary chat room thing that had nothing whatsoever to do with science forum...so I'm just going to post on here now....

It is a chat room, not a forum. I'll go on for a second, so if you see this, go ahead on and I'll say hi.

Yeeeessss......I know it's a chatroom...the point I'm making is that what I ended up in (purely randomly it seems) was NOT a chat room connected to this forum.

I'm not sure what you're saying then. It's a chat room that, for now, has little to do with SFN except that all our members are invited to chat.

If it's channel #sfn on irc.blackcobalt.net, and @quartz is in there, then it is our room, and it's just a matter of idling until other people drop by.

daisy click the "chatroom" link at the top of the webpage!

the other day blike and i noticed that we were the only people on the chat. he suggested that we set up a chat time every so often. i agreed. what do the lot of you think?

i dont mind but its up to blike and sayo and blike is in a hurrcaine right now i think that SFN is the last thing on his mind right now

The all time i entered the IRC chatroom, i only found YT in the old server. and now haven't seen anyone.

@quartz ought to be in there all the time - he's the bot that keeps the channel open.

 

If you don't see @quartz, you are not in the correct channel - check the new server address etc above.

Nice work Dave, it`s working great, and this one will accept my X-Chat client too

IT WORKS! Woohoo!

 

Didn't notice it for a while, since I was gone.

Glad it's all working out and the bot is still running. I've just got back from Ireland on holiday, so I'm a bit out of touch, but if you all have problems or whatever, give me a shout or post here.

Oh, something else:

 

If, like me, you use more than one nick, it's pretty easy to "link" those other nicks into the one you're currently registered under - assuming, of course, you've registered your existing nick like you should do and the ones you want aren't already registered.

 

Just type /ns link nicknameofyourchoice and you should link that nick to yourself. The advantages are:

 

1) You can ident for any one of your nicks using the same password.

2) If you have an access list of recognisable hosts, they work on all of those nicks.

3) If you're an AOP/SOP in a channel, you don't have to change nicks to get the aop/sop.

 

Just remember they expire after 30 days if you don't use them.

 

Hope this helps people

If I am using the nickname "Dave" in the channel, and you come online, you won't be able to identify as Dave even if you have regged it - which means you won't be +O in the channel.

 

What's the workaround for that?

/ns recover yournick yourpass

 

That command will /kill the person currently occupying your nickname. For more info, /ns help recover and whatnot.

Dave i have trillian and i cant get my nick i use when i cilck the link here. how can i use the nick on trillian???? plz help

i have 5 days left on chat, but i don't care because no one is ever on

5 days left? Huh?

How to bookmark the channel in my favourite?

I use the free MIRC.

Why doesn't the chat thing at the top of the page allow you to use some of the smiles that it's original designers have? It doesn't even recognize :hello: .

Do you mean the Java applet?

 

If so you will have to ask the person who wrote it.

okay.