"Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
Albert Einstein
Now, what does this information have to do with you? Well, quite a bit
actually. When you get onto IRC, you will have to choose a network. Both you and the people you want to talk to have to be on the same network, although you don't have to be on the same server.
Servers and how to connect
So - we know that IRC is basically a collection of servers and clients. Your system (the client) sends out messages to the major computers (the servers) which hold a number of clients (anywhere between one and several thousand clients at once). These servers are also linked with each other, forming an IRC network.
| This is important, because it means that New Zealand schools can link to a server in New Zealand, while British schools are linking to a server in Britain - and they can still communicate by IRC as long as both their servers are linked in the same network. It therefore means that both of you can link to servers in your own country, which keeps the price down! |
Check out this excellent page of information including a full IRC Network List - suddenly everything will become crystal clear!
There are several networks on the Internet, with the main ones being "Effnet", "Undernet", "IRCNet" and "Dalnet", although there are many other smaller networks springing up all the time - check the newsgroup alt.irc for names.
Some servers restrict access to users from particular geographical locations, all are limited as to how many people they can have logged in at once - don't be surprised if you get an error message or two or ten. Sometimes all the users from a particular ISP are banned, because someone from there has broken the rules. If your ISP has been banned you may see the words k-lined on the console as you try (and fail) to log in - it almost certainly isn't your fault, but it's also pretty hard to get a k-line lifted - you're probably better off trying another server.
To connect to an IRC server, you simply enter the name of that server in the appropriate "connect" or "server" window of your software.
|
We have looked at the networks available and decided that Undernet is the best one for InterLink as it has servers in both New Zealand and Britain.
The NZ Undernet server name is
The UK Undernet server name is
and there's also one in Dublin called
Check out the Official Undernet Server List for more details. |
| For the InterLink IRC sessions between you and your partner school, it will be important to check you can both access the Undernet network before you set a date for IRC-ing. If either of you cannot access Undernet, please email me straight away and I'll help you find another network. |
There may be other details to set up before you connect to the Net for your IRC session. In ircle (the IRC software for the Mac), for example, you need to go to Startup Preferences under File command. There you will find the little boxes where you enter the server name, the port (which usually comes up automatically and is usually 6667), your nickname, username and real name.
Your nickname (in the jargon it's known as your 'nick') is the name by which you will be known during the chat session . This can be up to nine characters long, and shouldn't include any non-alphabetic characters. You can choose any name as your nick, as long as no-one else on the server is using it already, and some people like to take on a bit of an alter-ego with their nickname - like Catwoman or Gandalf or something.
You can also set and change your nickname during a session (see commands).
Your username is the same as your email username, and your real name is the one that will show up if someone does a /whois command on you (see commands).
So, how do you connect to a server and what's going to happen?
- Get online - ie dial up your modem as usual. You don't need to change any settings on your modem.
- Make sure that you have entered the correct Undernet server name in the "server" box of your software, and that you have filled in your nickname, real name etc.
- Open all the windows available on your software so you can see what's going on. Most have windows for things like Main, Userlist and Channellist.
- Dial up to the Undernet server, following the instructions for your software.
- You will know you have been successful when stuff starts scrolling across your main window. This contains information on the number of channels available, the number of users on the network, and the rules of the network. When the information stops scrolling, you can join a channel.
