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First off, some of you may be asking “What is this IRC that you speak of?” Well, IRC, or Internet Relay Chatroom, a way of communicating in real time with people from all over the world. It is made up of different networks of servers, which allow people to connectto discuss just about anything by joining channels. Channels are basically chatrooms with a specific topic. The channel names either begin with a # or an &. Each person on IRC is known by their “Nick” or nickname which is essentially a screen name this name is the name that appears as the person talks. Channels are presided over by operators, which are more commonly known as “ops”. Ops essentially moderate the channel and enforce its rules. There are a large set of commands that IRC allows you to use, but I will not discuss them here because the list is too extensive. Plus, I don’t even know all of them. If you would like to learn more about IRC you should visit the IRChelp website.

In order to join an IRC server and a channel and talk on them, you will need an IRC client. One of the most popular ones for Windows is mIRC, but it is pretty old school looking, and it costs $20 to register after the 30 day trial period. It also reminds me of Windows 98 to be honest. My favorite IRC client is IceChat. It is more modern looking and is very easy to use. For Linux, I like X-Chat, which also has a windows version. And on Macs, I love using Colloquy, which has a couple of great looking skins and integrates with the Mac OS X look and feel very well.

I frequent the #rmxp channel on the irc.slacked.org server. For you other IRC users, what channels do you frequently visit?