posted August 15, 2004 04:29 PM         

When you install mIRC, you will see the following windows appear. Just click on 'OK' or 'Next' or 'Continue' or 'Install' or whatever keeps the process going, until you come to the last one.

posted August 15, 2004 04:51 PM         

As soon as mIRC starts up, you will see a its main window, but a smaller one will pop up in front of it. This window has a picture of some crazy guy on it. (He's the guy who makes mIRC.)

Basically, this window is asking you to send the crazy guy $5 to register the program. Just click 'Continue' for now.

Another window will pop up. It looks like this:

This is mIRC's Options Dialog. (Dialog is another name for 'window'.) This is where you set up all the options for how mIRC will behave. There are a lot of options! But we don't need to worry about them today. We just need to give mIRC a few pieces of information that it needs in order to successfully connect you to an IRC Network (like Undernet).

Notice the tall, narrow white box at the left of this window that says

Connect
|--Servers
|--Options
|--Local Info

etc., etc.

mIRC's Options Dialog has many 'pages', and this is like the 'table of contents'. Go ahead, click around on the different headings, watch the rest of the dialog change to a new page. Just be sure to come back to the first page, 'Connect', by highlighting it again.

Still with me? Back on the 'Connect' page like the picture above?

Notice the four text fields labelled

Full Name:
E-mail Address:
Nickname:
Alternative:

and the check-mark box below them labelled "Invisible mode". These are the five things we need to set up on this page.

Type in anything you like for a 'Real Name' and an 'E-Mail Address'. I recommend that you not put your really real name or your really real e-mail address, mmmkay?

Pick a nickname for yourself, and type it into the 'Nickname' field. You might want to use your LL nickname, so's we don't all think you're a stranger. But it doesn't matter much; on IRC you can change your nickname at any given moment you feel like it. (See? Control.) Also give an 'Alternative' nickname, in case the first one is already being used by someone else. (A lot of people just use the same nickname with a ` character after it.)

Also check the "Invisible mode" box. Basically it helps keep you anonymous on IRC, and almost everyone uses it, but there is another reason I want you to check it; it will make something else easier in a few minutes.

Now go back over to the 'Category' box (what I called the 'table of contents') and flip to the next page, 'Servers'.

posted August 15, 2004 05:10 PM         

The two things we need to do on this page is choose an IRC Network to chat on, and which of its Servers we will connect to.

Ahhhh, now this makes sense, right?

You will see two drop-down boxes for this, labelled:

IRC Network:
IRC Server:

Pull down the first box, for Network, and choose Undernet.

This changes the list that you will see in the second drop-down box. Now it will only show Servers that are part of the Undernet network.

So pull down the second box, for 'Server', and choose.... can you guess which one you'll choose?

That's right, it doesn't matter. All the servers are part of the same network; we can connect to any one we like. I'd suggest picking one in the country where you live, but it's not all that important.

One last little page of options and you are ready to connect!

Switch to the 'IdentD' page.

posted August 15, 2004 05:31 PM         

This is a really old form of 'identification' that for some reason IRC still uses. Just bear with it, okay?

Check the check-mark box labelled 'Enable Identd Server'.

Type something into the field labelled 'User ID:'. Anything you like. But you should probably keep it simple and use 8 letters or less. No funny characters. I told you, this Identd thing is old.

And that's it! You will never have to set these options up again.

Now click the 'OK' button at the bottom, and the dreaded Options Dialog will disappear, and you will be back at mIRC's main window:

Notice the long row of buttons near the top. The first one looks like a lightning bolt. The second one is a folder with a hammer. These are important buttons. The first one, the lightning bolt, is your 'Connect/Disconnect' button. The second one is the 'Options' button, and will take you back to the Options Dialog if you ever need or want to make changes there.

Click the lightning bolt to connect to Undernet.

You will see a lot of text start scrolling up your screen at various speeds. When it comes to a stop, this is the last thing you will see (assume that your nickname is varbin):

When you see that line of text,

* YourNickname sets mode: +i

and a little box pops up that says "mIRC Favorites" in the titlebar, then you're connected. (Close the stupid little window that says "mIRC Favorites"). Congratulations, you made it! You're connected to Undernet. You have just joined the ranks of the cyber-elite. (Well, most of us. )

posted August 15, 2004 05:42 PM         

It's not called a "chat room", dammit! It's a "channel"!!!

<ahem> Excuse me.

So, as I was saying, you probably want to get into my channel, right? At least so you can tell me what a long-winded cyber-snob I am.

You do that by typing

/join #wonderland

and pressing Enter.

A new window will open within mIRC just for that channel. Here is what you should see:

Welcome to Wonderland! Now we can chat like the incredibly sophisticated power-users we are. Go ahead and do it now if you want to, but please come back and read the rest of this, too. At least read it before asking me a zillion questions.

IRC is a text-based service. You give it text commands, just like back in the days of DOS. That was before Windows.... maybe a lot of you are staring at me blankly right now. Anyway, you have to know how to type a few commands to use IRC. Don't freak out; you only need to know five of them. They are:

/list
/join
/part
/msg
/quit

Notice that they all start with the / character. IRC commands always do.

/list
will open a new window within mIRC and start retreiving the names of every channel on the network. Then you can shop around for a place to chat, and meet all kinds of bizaare people from all over the world. Don't do this now; Undernet is huge, and the list will take forever.

/join #channel
will let you... ummm... join a channel. Important note! Notice that channels always start with a # pound sign. When you join a new channel, mIRC opens a new window just for that channel. You can usually join up to 10 channels at once. It depends on the network.

/part
~or~
/part #channel
will get you out of a channel when you want to leave. I'll tell you the point-n-click way to do this one: close the window for that channel!

/msg SomeNickName Messagemessageblahblahblah
this sends a *private message* to someone else. In the example above, the other person's nickname is SomeNickName and what you're telling them privately is Messagemessageblahblahblah. Nobody else will ever see it. You dirty gossip you!

/quit
Hmmmm, I *wonder* what this does? This how you disconnect from the network. You can also leave a quit message, a parting shot, if you will, like this:
/quit You guys suck! I'm outta here!
If you're in a channel, and /quit without /parting the channel first, then everyone in the channel will see your quit message when you go.

That's it! Everything you need to know to use IRC. I hope no one suffered a cerebral hemhorrage along the way!

One last thing you might want to know:
mIRc opens up a lot of windows within its main window. And you can maximize them like any window, which means they expand to fill all mIRC's internal space, and you can't see the other windows "behind" them. If you do this, mIRc has provided a Switchbar to switch between its internal windows. It's right here:

posted August 17, 2004 12:50 AM         

I did everything right!! And it keeps saying 'Erroneous Nickname'....

posted August 17, 2004 12:59 AM         

/nick NewNickname

posted August 17, 2004 03:20 PM         

How are you guys, by the way? Haven't seen you posting too much, must be spending too much time, um.......... somewhere else?

hehehe

posted August 17, 2004 07:24 PM         

Ghani, I'm connected to mIRC most of the time, whether I'm at the computer or not. I also don't sleep a whole lot. You'll just have to drop by and shout at me to see if I'm awake.

BloodRed, bring your bouncy butt by anytime! I've got a dead channel that I'm trying to bring back to life, so enthusiasm is encouraged!

Just want to make sure you know, if you really want to get into IRC, that the directions start on Page Three of this string, not at the top of this page, with a 'Note from Foamy'. Stuff you should know, trust me!

posted August 17, 2004 07:31 PM         

I'm

Wych'