IRC

What is IRC: Internet relay chat, a chat protocol. Since chatting is the thing we do most in VRVS, it might be easier to try this and circumvent more VRVS connection problems.

I suggest we use as server irc.freenode.net and as channel #itag

How to use IRC?

The easiest method is to use webChat2.0 This is an web based chat client. Easy to use on a modern browser (FF, IE6, IE7) and no installation is required.

After clicking on the above link, you see the following screen where you can enter a (descriptive) nickname. Also, make sure you choose freenode network.

attachment:webchat1.png

After clicking on "Connect", you are logged in on the freenode server and automatically enter a demo channel. To move to the #itag channel enter /join #itag in the entry box at the bottom of the screen:

attachment:webchat2.png

This will take you to the #itag channel, where hopefully others have managed to connect:

attachment:webchat3.png

Other clients

I (Mark Fiers) use pidgin, and am very happy with it. It is multi platform and (relatively) easy to use. Another good choice is Xchat or the chatzilla firefox plugin. More information on irc can be found here: http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html

Remarks

Webchat2 is (just) a demo of the developers, although it appears easy to use and stable. However, if we choose to use this we should either create a webchat2 instance dedicated to ITAG, or everybody should use another client.

Secondly, we could discuss password protecting the channel, but personally, I don't think that is really necessary.