Chat

Get to know your fellow artSIG and photoSIG members. Drop by our very own chat room. The directions for how to do this are found below. Hope to see you there!

The mIRC client

For PC users, we recommend using the mIRC client. The most recent version requires that you pay a fee after a trial period of 30 days. Thefore, we recommend that you consider the older version, 6.02, which doesn't demand a fee payment, but you can donate to the author if you like mIRC and wish to support its development (recommended).

Initial Setup

After you have installed the mIRC client and start it for the first time, you will be presented with a dialog asking you to register mIRC. Close that dialog and you should be presented with the mIRC Options dialog box. On the left of it is a tree structure that sorts the various options categories. At the top is Connections; if it isn't selected, then select it.

IRC Network:

In the main secion of the dialog box and near the top is the IRC Network field. Scroll down the list until you come across EsperNet and select it. In the box directly below that you should now see EsperNet: Random server. Later, you can add specific EsperNet servers if you find the need.

Full Name and Email Address:

Towards the bottom of this dialog box are four fields. The first two are Full Name and Email Address. As a matter of personal security, it would probably be best to make these bogus data. For example, most people in IRC put a statement or an expression here. Again, the email address doesn't need to be real. In this case, simply abc@abc.com would be enough.

Nickname and Alternative:

In the world of IRC, your screen name is referred to as your nick. So, for Nickname decide on a screen name which will likely be unique to you (it should start with a letter). Due to a particular worm/virus that mostly affects IRC servers, it would be wise to make sure that your screen name does not end in a number because some IRC servers, including some EsperNet servers, won't allow someone to connect with a nick ending in one or more numbers. Though a number in the middle of the nick is fine. Also choose an alternative nick in case someone on EsperNet is already using the nick you have chosen.

IRC itself

Now simply click the button marked Connect to IRC Server. At first, another dialog box will pop up asking you which channel (chat room) you want to join. You don't need it now, so you can close it (most elect to not have it show up again at startup). The white window that you're left with is called the Status window and it shows messages regarding the IRC server and various services offered by the server.

NickServ

If you find that you've recieved a message in your Status window from NickServ claiming that your nick has been registered by someone else, type:

/nick <an alternative nickname>

If you get disconnected from IRC, don't worry, this was just NickServ doing its job.

The purpose of NickServ is to act as a way of protecting people's identities on IRC. If you register your nick with EsperNet's Nickserv, then anyone signing in with your registered nickname will have to supply a password to Nickserv in a limited amount of time. Otherwise they will be disconnected from EsperNet.

To register your own nick with NickServ, type:

/msg nickserv register <a password of your choice> <an optional email address>

The email address here is for password retrieval purposes and you won't get more spam emails because of it.

After you have your nick registered with NickServ, every time you log into EsperNet with your nick, you will need to identify yourself with Nickserv. To do this, simply type:

/msg nickserv ident <the password you supplied when you registered>

This line can be done automatically for you in mIRC by putting the above line in Options --> Connect --> Perform

Joining #photosig

Finally, to connect to the #photosig channel, type /join #photosig and press the enter key. Once in the channel, say hello, introduce yourself and have fun!

At this time, both artSIG and photoSIG will share the same chat room.

Further information

The mIRC client is a powerful application which can be fun in and of itself (re: scripting). To learn more about IRC itself and mIRC commands and functions in general, please read the help files included with mIRC, do searches on Google or whatever search engine suits you. Failing that, don't hesitate to ask the channel Ops (volunteer moderators) and they'll be glad to assist as best they can. Michelle Cox has very nicely also made this Help Page with the chat names of many of the chat room regulars. Check it out.