How to make friends and influence people - mIRC 5.82 (mIRC)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	mIRC
Date:	13/11/00 (308 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: As easy or difficult as you want it to be, small download, updated often, widely used

Disadvantages: Some rude people online, ASL

I've been involved with IRC since I started university in 1997 when I no longer had to worry about spending too much time connected to the Internet at home.

I had heard about it from a friend who had told me how to get connected, so I downloaded it, and installed it. It's a fairly small download at just over 1Mb, and installation is fully automatic once you decide where the installation directory will be. Setting up is a breeze and if you know nothing about IRC (Internet Relay Chat), as I did the first time, you can still find yourself online and chatting within minutes.

All you do then is select a network (each network has it's own rules, and thousands of channels, and the main networks are Undernet, DALnet or Efnet) and server (each network has hundreds of servers, all of which provide a means of joining the network - usually, it the fastest is the one which is geographically closest to you, but this is not always the case), select a nickname (and a backup in case your first choice is taken), and then choose whether to supply your real name and e-mail address (people rarely do).

Select a chat room to enter, and away you go. Most people are quite friendly, and asking questions politely will usually get you an answer, or point you to where you can get an answer.

My advice for the first time, or novice user is to pick one or two of the general chat sites (I'll use Undernet as an example, as that's what I use) like #funchat or #funfactory (there are channels, or rooms, which purport to be for people of similar interests e.g. #ironmaiden #soccer #chocolate etc.) then any time you are IRC-ing, spend your time in these rooms. This way, you get to meet a lot of people, and your questions can be answered. There are also lots of help channels for new users, and visiting a few of those could prove to be very useful indeed. When starting off, it's best to be polite - no swearing, repeating or typing in capitals (w
hich are probably the three most common rules of IRC channels). There are some web sites out there for beginners to IRC – you could do worse than try www.newircusers.com or www.beginner.proroom.com. Another thing which is becoming increasingly popular (but is considered rude) is the immediate use of the phrase "asl". This means "age, sex location" and is asked by people who for some reason cannot have a conversation without knowing this information. If you can avoid these, then you can be sure of having a good time online, and perhaps making friends across the world!

At this time, you can only log onto one network at a time as part of the initial program, but there are add-ons out there that will let you use more than one network at a time – mIRC as a program allows you to only use one IRC network at a time.

mIRC is very easy to use - text is colour coded for speech, actions etc. It's customisable with scripts which you can write yourself, or download from the Internet. Depending on your point of view, you may or may not want to use scripts - it's all down to personal taste, and there are sites dedicated to supplying scripts and add-ons (scripts are large multipurpose plug ins, whereas add-ons are only for one purpose)

There are many different types of script to make you IRC-ing more enjoyable - from silly messages to mp3 players, and if you are really lucky, scripts which enable you op a channel more effectively.

There are a lot of sites on the World Wide Web that can show you how to make your own scripts, or customise your copy of mIRC to the way you want. This may be a simple thing such as programming some automatic messages to be displayed with a few mouse clicks (an example I saw recently explained how to play a sound sample [e.g. Homer Simpson saying "woohoo"] when someone in a channel says "Woohoo"), or a detailed explanation into how to tweak the mIRC settings.
This is the sort of fun that can be had with mIRC customisation.

Sites you could look at include: www.mircx.com or www.mircscripts.com. The mIRC help file also includes some good information on scripting / customising.

One of the very few disadvantages of mIRC over the other IRC programs out there is the outdated UNIX like text input. A lot of it has been cut down in the form of buttons and popups, but to get the most out of it, it would be advisable dipping your toes into the help file.

Another thing to watch out for, and this is not a bad point about the program, but the nature of the chatting itself, is its' reliance on slang and abbreviations. It may seem complicated to begin with, but if you have any problems, just ask a channel operator [they'll be people with a '@' beside their name] and they should be glad to explain to you what stuff means.

In my opinion though, for beginner or more experienced users, mIRC is certainly my IRC program of choice, although if you try it and don’t like it, the others to look for (on Windows PC's - I have no idea about other platform/OS IRC programs) are pIRCh or vIRC. Get yourself logged on, and enjoy!

Summary: