Collaborating with IRC

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Collaborating with IRC
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What is IRC?

• It stands for Internet Relay Chat
• It is communicating with real people in
  real-time.
• IRC is the net's equivalent of CB radio. But
  unlike CB, Internet Relay Chat lets people all
  over the world participate in real-time
  conversations. IRC is where the Net comes alive!
  - http//www.mirc.com/irc.html
• Its a way to meet people, whether professionally
  or socially.
• Its a way to collaborate with groups of people
  in real-time.

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IRC History

• IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, was first started
  in August of 1988, when Jarkko Oikarinen, an
  employee of the Department of Information
  Processing Science at the University of Oulu, had
  some spare time on his hands and tried to figure
  out a means of communication based on BBS
  (Bulletin Board System). His hope was to allow
  USENET news kinds of discussions and groups in
  addition to real-time discussions, but as we can
  see, IRC has outgrown all of his expectations. -
  http//www.ircbeginner.com/ircinfo/history.html
• IRC gained international fame during the Gulf
  War in 1991, where updates from around the world
  came across the wire, and most irc users who were
  online at the time gathered on a single channel
  to hear these reports. IRC had similar uses
  during the coup against Boris Yeltsin in
  September 1993, where IRC users from Moscow were
  giving live reports about the unstable situation
  there. - http//www.mirc.com/irc.html

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How can IRC help me?
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It can take you from this...
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to this...
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to this!
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How can IRC help me?

• Recent tests have shown that using IRC can
  increase intelligence by 50 or possibly lower it
  by 150 depending on how you look at it.
• It can help you get quick answers to questions
  without having to wait for a response from an
  email or internet forum.
• It can provide an effective way for team or group
  collaboration.
• It can provide a way to network with other
  professionals in your field.
• It can provide a way to work at home. Some jobs
  rely solely on IRC, IM messages and email as a
  way to communicate with their employees.
• In a recent job posting for Automattic (the
  people behind WordPress) they mentioned that they
  coordinate about 95 of their projects on a
  private IRC channel, which is archived and
  searchable, 4 via email, and the rest on direct
  IM, usually AIM and Skype.

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Words of Caution

• It can be addictive if you're not careful.
• You can run across a great deal of sex-talk,
  sleaze and garbage if you're not careful.

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IRC/Channel Etiquette

• Asking Questions
• Don't ask to ask, just ask.
• Be patient and wait for answers.
• Ask intelligent questions! Make sure you give all
  the pertinent information so people can help you.
  "My mouse isn't working, PLEASE HELP!" This is
  an example of a bad question. A better question
  might be, "My mouse stopped working after I
  spilled my drink on it. Does anyone have any
  suggestions on fixing it or should I just get a
  new mouse?"
• Private Messages It's a general rule that you
  shouldn't send private messages to users unless
  you know them or unless you've asked them if it's
  ok first.

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IRC/Channel Etiquette

• Avoid having people sending you RTFM and STFW
  messages by searching the net and reading the
  manual before asking your question.
• Read the channels guidelines Freenode has some
  general guidelines (http//freenode.net/channel_gu
  idelines.shtml) to go by.

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Common Terms

• IRC Network (Freenode, Undernet, EFNet, QuakeNet)
• IRC Channel
• User Modes (Operator, Invisible, Registered,
  etc.)
• Channel Topic - The topic of the channel you are
  on
• Common IRC Commands
• /join - Join an IRC channel (/join channel-name)
• /msg - Send a private message to another user
  (/msg users-nick Your private message)
• /whois - View user details (/whois users-nick)
• For a more complete list go to http//en.wikipedia
  .org/wiki/List_of_IRC_commands

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Freenode.net

• Freenode is one of the largest IRC networks that
  caters to the open source development community.
• Freenode stats as of February 27, 2007
• 19,116 listed users
• 16,422 unlisted users
• A total of 35,538 users on 24 servers
• 37 flagged staff members
• 14317 channels formed

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IRC Channels at K-State

• KSU on Freenode
• k-slug (Kansas State Linux Users Group) on
  Freenode
• kwag (K-State Web Authors Group) on Freenode

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Popular IRC Programs

• IRC Programs for Windows
• mIRC - http//www.mirc.com/
• Trillian - http//www.ceruleanstudios.com/
• Chatzilla - http//www.mozilla.org/projects/rt-mes
  saging/chatzilla/
• Opera - http//www.opera.com/
• X-Chat - http//www.xchat.org/windows/
• Gaim - http//gaim.sourceforge.net/win32/index.php
  
• IRC Programs for OSX
• Colloquy - http//colloquy.info/
• X-Chat Aqua - http//xchataqua.sourceforge.net/twi
  ki/bin/view/Main/WebHome
• ChatZilla - http//www.mozilla.org/projects/rt-mes
  saging/chatzilla/
• IRC Programs for Linux
• X-Chat - http//www.xchat.org/
• Irssi - http//www.irssi.org/

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Additional Resources

• KWAG IRC Help - http//www.k-state.edu/kwag/irc-he
  lp.html
• IRCHelp.org - A Short IRC Primer
  (http//www.irchelp.org/irchelp/ircprimer.html)
• IRCHelp.org - An IRC Turorial (http//www.irchelp.
  org/irchelp/irctutorial.html)
• Evolt.Org - IRC Primer (http//evolt.org/evolt_irc
  _primer/)
• mIRC - IRC FAQ (http//www.mirc.com/ircintro.html)
  
• free2code - Basic IRC Tutorial (http//www.free2co
  de.net/tutorials/irc/22/basic_irc.php)

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Sources

• Collaboration Photo - http//flickr.com/photos/cri
  minalintent/152443312/
• Tin Can Photo - http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image
  Tin_can_telephone.jpg
• Outlook Photo - http//flickr.com/photos/popkid/32
  2309876/
• Dog Smile Photo - http//flickr.com/photos/8221344
  9_at_N00/68584790/