h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

ICQ is NOT IRC
AOL is NOT IRC
VPChat is NOT IRC
MSChat is NOT IRC

IRC is Internet Relay Chat. IRC is about a zillion little networks and three major ones: EFnet, Undernet and DALnet. IRC is a client/server based process. It is global. It can be fun. It can be dangerous. It can be lots of things.. but it is NOT AOL (though sometimes it can make you think it is).


You left out ircII, Pirch, BitchX, and a host of others. They're NOT all that complicated if you RTFM! Most of them take you step-by-step through the setup process. They are the clients.

Do I need to write a page on this?

Strongly held views on the factual inergrity of an article? - Yup, sure sounds like you need to write a page on this.


;^)#

Yeah, and you perhaps need to express your irritation it in a slightly more tactless way.

Not.

Face it. IRC is now dying a death, it is one of those old techie strongholds that is being replaced by slightly more user friendly (alledgedly) things. I used to enjoy nothing more than using IRC on UNIX (until my Uni. stopped me doing so) but those days are gone. If ICQ was slightly more readily available it would've taken over long ago.

Tactless? Moi?

Sorry, but after three years of sitting on an 'unofficial AOL help channel' (even though I've never touched the stuff ) and trying to explain the difference between AOL and the internet/IRC/etc and answering questions like, "Can I talk in AOL Chatrooms from mIRC?" and ... well.. to put it short... *arrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhh*

Oh... And if IRC is dying, perhaps you can explain why all three major networks are trying desperately to come up with better ways of handling the rapid influx of new users and the heavier and heavier load the servers have to deal with?

I just thought I'd share my one and only experience with IRC.

I happened to be stuck on a particularly annoying part of the game "Unreal", so I thought I'd see if anyone on an IRC channel could help me.

To this end, I downloaded a fairly friendly IRC client, installed it, and got on to an Unreal channel. There was one other person on there.

The conversation went like this:

Him: Hi
Me: Hi
Him: Do you have a real copy of Unreal?
Me: Yes (thinks...er...why else would I be here?)
Him: Do you have a CD burner?
Me: Er...goodbye (I see - that's why you'd be here...)

I've never been back.

Tim

Heh.. That's probably why "Him" was sitting in a channel all by himself.

*sigh* ... Actually I wish that were the case. The Warez channels are too full for comfort... Though there are many other places that don't tolerate it.. Some even have auto-eject buttons all around the place for anyone who -happens- to be in one of the 'lamer' channels.

Since I haven't found the appropriate place to enter this, I'll stick it in right here...which is close:

This Internet/Email3 column is a little strange: no matter which entry is being read, the replies are all for the first column. If I want to reply to something in a later column I end up back at the first.

After much messing about with finding a link to the editor (which I didn't), I've forgotten what I wanted to remark on (except the difficulty in finding the right reply forum).

Fruitbat

There's one forum for the whole of the hhgi, so here is definitely the right place to talk about it - if you can remember, that is.

*blink* ... hhgi?

Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Internet
H H G I

HHGI. Our internal name for the project. Snappy, eh!

*grin* .. I figured it out about three seconds after I posted it. Oh well... I cling to the excuse of just having waken from the most glorius dream!

(I didn't, but I'm clinging to the excuse anyway.   )

ICQ is very useful and user-friendly, IMHO... although I've never used IRC or anything else so really I can't compare them. However, if you want to keep track of when people are online... it's ideal. And for chatting, it's great - you can get a window pane each, so that things appear as you type them... and you can do ASCII art when the conversation flags. There are other advantages too... if you happen to have lots of computers connected over a LAN which is also connected to the internet (this *has* happened... look up LAN Parties...) then you can make all the computers in the room beep at once... it's great fun *grins manically*, well it's fun at about 4a.m. in the morning when you've played all the games in your collection, and everybody else's, to death...

Oh, and you can copy-n-paste a Mb of text into the window to crash everybody else's computers... not that I've ever done that on purpose. I've done it by accident a few times, though...

Anyhow, you can probably contact me over ICQ by looking for someone with name David Morgan, nickname [KhL]Morgan.

I have nothing against ICQ. In fact, I'm usually on it, even if not paying attention. You can get an IRC layout, too, though it doesn't exactly work like IRC. Personally I haven't upgraded to all the new, useless crap.

For those on *ix, try mICQ, zICQ (and I think there's a new one for gnome... gICQ ... but don't quote me on that) and probably others. What I find most useful about it isn't keeping track of others online (aka: Stalking ), but leaving messages for those who are -not- online at the time you think of whatever it is you need to tell them.

>messages for those who are -not- online
>at the time you think of whatever it is
>you need to tell them.

So, kind of like email, then?

Tim

yup, that would be something like e-mail I guess. With a few exceptions... many people have ICQ loading up automatically when they log onto the internet (I don't, it's daft, but lotsa people do ), and the messages appear next the name of the person they're from, instead of in a list. They also go away when you've read them, into the depths of the ICQ log file...

*nods* ... Personally I prefer a good talk client, but so few on peecees have it, and probably half the *ix geeks (at least) have it shut off for security reasons...

These days almost everyone and their brother has ICQ so it's just easier (read: cop-out ) ... Email is nice, but this way you can go real-time to discuss the issue when whoever gets back... And before you say 'you can do email quasi-real-time' ... you don't have the ISP or servers I do or you'd know how futile that was.

--Nonnie ~~

Let's not forget, on ICQ everyone can see how fast you're typing - which I quite like - and you can delete stuff after you've typed it, too, which is mightily useful, especially for slipping in comments about someone when they're away (ICQ shows, in chat mode, when people are in a window other than the ICQ one).

ICQ does have its bad points, however... the random chat facility is frankly *insert expletive here*. It relies on people selecting "Free for chat" - which people hardly ever do. Let me give an example... there are, supposedly, many millions of people on ICQ... the ONE time I actually got a random chat request when I was in "free for chat" mode, it turned out it was one of my best friends who I'd been chatting to a few minute beforehand... there are, at a guess, only one or two people in "free for chat" mode at any time...

So don't bother.

There are also various security concerns, largely centred about the fact that ICQ makes it possible to detect the IP addresses of other users...

Pointless things to do on ICQ (first in an ongoing series): Play Noughts and Crosses (also known as "Tic Tac Toe") - but no paper is allowed and you just call out the number of the places, using the number pad as a reference. The biggest challenge is not forgetting who's gone where...

Next week: humourous ICQ/ASCII bovine rendering (drawing daft pictures of cows).

Erasing what you type is only possible in certain modes.. It's not in IRC layout, for example... and now, with the newer versions, if you're in the split window mode and someone else is in IRC mode, you only get to see what they 'send' (after they hit return) ... I don't get into all that other *ggggggrrrrrrr* stuff...

This is true. If, however, you do happen to chat to me - don't use IRC mode. I leave blank lines, I don't press return very often, and I draw pictures.

I can imagine what this would look like in IRC mode, and it's not exactly comprehensible...