Chris Pirillo » irc

How to Make a Man Do Anything for You

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:12:58 +0000

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

As I mentioned the other day, I will be turning into Subservient Chris again this New Year’s Eve. In the past, all of the money donated during the event has gone to the IRC network that I am associated with. The folks at GeekShed are an awesome group of people, many of whom I’ve worked with for years! This year, though, we’re doing things a lot differently. GeekShed is only keeping a small portion of the monies raised. I brought my awesome assistant Kat in during this video to talk to all of you about what we’re doing this year – and why.

Cory Carrier became a member of the Lockergnome community before there even was a community. He was quite young when he first started showing up. Despite his age at the time, he became a very important contributor to what we were doing. His intelligence, maturity and sense of humor pulled people in towards him. His compassion and huge heart kept them there.

Cory lived his life with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy, spending his days in a wheelchair and even hooked up to a ventilator to help him breathe much of the time. However, Cory never let MD stop him, or hold him back. He never let it define him, nor how he lived his life. He loved life, and it showed. He laughed in the face of his disease, naming himself Gimpi in our chat room, and Krippl on Twitter.

Sadly, we lost Cory back on October first, due to complications with the H1N1 virus. Cory’s loss devastated myself and our community, but none more so than Kat. She and Cory had a special bond. He referred to her as his “Internet Mom”, and she claimed him as her “son”. She loves to tell stories of his wicked sense of humor, including the times he would scare the life out of substitute teachers in high school. Apparently, Cory had a button on his wheelchair that when pushed would emit a loud, high-pitched beeping noise. When he had a sub, Cory would push the button and then slump over in his chair. He cracked himself up all the time, and brought smiles to those around him.

In Cory’s memory, we are donating 75% of this year’s donations to the Tucson, AZ chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. They worked with Cory and his family for many years. Cory raised money for the MDA tirelessly, even serving as the Ambassador at least once. This is the best way that we could come up with to honor his memory.

Join us on New Year’s Eve beginning at 10pm Eastern time. For a minimum ten dollar donation, I will perform random crazy acts at your request… much like the Subservient Chicken. Even if you cannot be with us during the event, you can still make your donation (and request!) ahead of time. Simply head to my live page, and scroll down below the video and chat box. You’ll see the place where you can enter your donation information.

Thanks so much to Kat, who has worked tirelessly putting this together this year, and spreading the word around the World. Let’s work together to make this event one that will never be forgotten… and one that will hopefully help the MDA continue the amazing work they do with patients and their families.

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

Raising Money for MDA with Subservient Chris

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:37:57 +0000

This year, we will once again be doing the Subservient Chris fundraiser on New Year’s Eve, from 10:00 PM until 1:00 AM Eastern Time. That’s 7pm until 10pm Pacific time, where I live! In the past, the monies raised were donated 100% to the irc network that my channel is found on. This year, we are doing things a bit differently, so listen carefully.

Back on October 1st, long-time community member Cory Carrier passed away. Cory suffered from Muscular Dystrophy basically all of his life. We lost him due to complications from the H1N1 Flu virus. Cory was highly active within our community, and on IRC. He was loved by everyone he came in contact with, and his loss has left a huge hole in our hearts.

We wanted to do something to commemorate our years with Cory, and the impact he had on all of us. The best thing we can think of is to give back to the charity that helped Cory nearly all of his life. The local chapter of the MDA in Tucson, AZ is who worked with Cory and his family. Therefore, this year we will be donating 25% of the monies raised to GeekShed IRC network to help with operating expenses. The greater portion of your donations – 75% – will be sent directly to the Tucson chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association in Cory’s name.

I cannot express enough how much it means to myself and my staff to be able to do this. Cory was an amazing person. If you ever talked with him at all, you’ll know what a great sense of humor he had, how much he loved all things technology, and how much he truly cared about people.

So how does this thing work? It’s simple, young grasshoppers. My assistant Kat will be hooked into the stream with me via Mumble. She has access to see donations made to the GeekShed account. For a minimum $10.00 donation, you can request something silly for me to do. Keep in mind that I will not do anything illegal or immoral… or disgusting. In the past, I have been known to sing and dance, put peanut butter on my face, and end the night in a dress with heels and makeup. Just about anything goes, and I’m looking to help raise a LOT of money for the MDA!!

Have your donations ready, along with your Subservient Chris requests. When making your donation that night to GeekShed, put your request for me in the comments section, so that Kat will know what to have me do! I’m looking forward to this, and I hope all of you will join us for a fun-filled – and very worthwhile – New Year’s Eve!

Be sure to join us in the live chat room during the event!

Changes in Our IRC Network Channel

Chris Pirillo — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:32:14 +0000

As many of you know by now, my live chat room changed networks today. For many years, my various channels were located on the WyldRyde network. For the most part, things worked very well between myself, the network, and its staff.

There have been many changes recently, and I’m not going to make much comment on them. It’s frankly not my business, nor my place, to attempt to guess as to every “real” reason, and everything that happened behind the scenes. However, moving networks was not a decision I came to lightly. This also wasn’t done solely to please one or two people, as some are trying to claim.

I want my chat users to have the best possible experience when they visit my channel. There were some things that transpired at WyldRyde today that I knew would prevent that positive experience, changes which could potentially place much pressure and stress on my staff, my users and even myself.

The owners and administrators of the new network, GeekShed, are people I have come to know very well over the years. These people know what they’re doing, and they do it very well. I have complete confidence in them, and in their ability to properly maintain the new network.

GeekShed IRC was started by a majority of the former WyldRyde Network staff. They felt that the WyldRyde management was not handling issues and complaints (made by staff, users and channel owners) over a period of several months. These complaints were ignored, and not dealt with in any satisfactory manner. The recent (and undisclosed to the users and majority of the staff) acquisition of WyldRyde by BestTechie played only a small part in the actual decision and subsequent move.

I am very happy thus far with my new IRC home, and I certainly hope you will join us there. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, you can leave them here in a follow-up comment. For questions related to the network itself (not my channel, specifically), you can join the new network: irc.geekshed.net and join the #help channel there to speak with the staff.

Edited to add: You will not need to re-register, no. The nicknames, channels, passwords, etc were all moved to the new network. Your nickname is already registered on GeekShed if it was registered on WyldRyde, and you will use the same password to log in. Also, the voiced user list was moved for my channel, and will continue to operate the same as it has in the past.

As always, I will continue to be streaming live… 24 hours a day, 7 days a week… at live.pirillo.com.

How to Create a Chat Room for Free

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:31:28 +0000

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

The chat room that we run is on an IRC network found on WyldRyde. You can join us using an IRC client, or by joining on the Flash client embedded on my website. I’ve been using WyldRyde for many years, and have had a great experience there. The people who run the network are helpful and friendly, and certainly know their stuff. I’m indebted to them for all the help they’ve given me over the years. It’s a very well-run network, with tons of options for you to use in your own channels. You can quickly set up a channel to embed on your website, and connect using any IRC client. Then, connect to the server nearest you.

However, if you need your own chat room and don’t want to use IRC, it’s easy to do! You may just want something simple, that can be set up quick without needing to register for anything. In that case, you’ll want to check out TinyChat. With TinyChat, you can create your own chat room in seconds and invite others to join you, using one simple link.

After you leave the chat room, all the chat data is gone, so its perfect for secure chats. Why would you use this? Its the easiest way to have a group chat with multiple people. No more worrying about who has what messenger, or what everyones screen name is. Just send them a link!

Once people change their usernames, I get a list of the names, along with country flags. It tells me where people are from! I started a TinyChat of my own prior to starting this video, and threw the link out into my normal chat room. I had 39 users in the channel at the time. There were options for me to change my nickname, save the chat log, or even embed the chat room into a website (or even on my MySpace page!).

If you need chat, you want chat, and you don’t know where to start with chat – it doesn’t get any easier than TinyChat!

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

How to Chat on the iPhone or iPod Touch

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 01:03:25 +0000

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

If you couldn’t tell, I was reading what was being said in our live chat room – on my iPhone! The Colloquy IRC client is now available from the App Store for only $2.00! Traditionally, chat clients on the Mac have been just plain ugly. By adopting more of the Mac interface standards, Colloquy has shattered that mold forever, and made something slick and easy-to-use. There are a ton of cool features included with this iPhone App, including:

Convenient nickname and emoticon completion popups.
Organized Colloquies view that shows all your conversations at a glance.
Highlights messages (and optionally vibrates) when your specific words or nickname is mentioned.
Highly customizable interface and behavior settings within the Settings application.
Built-in browser for clicked links and commands for quick Google, Wikipedia and Amazon searches.
Full support for landscape mode in the entire application.
Multiple message styles to choose from.
Allows you to join multiple chat rooms across many different servers.
Automatic identification with network services (NickServ).
Solid support for secure connections over SSL.

If you’re looking for a way to chat on your iPhone, you now can do it with ease. It’s simple to get connected, yet has all of the capabilities of the full sized Application for OS X. It’s honestly very fast, as well. There is zero lag between the time someone types into chat, and when you see it on your iPhone.

You can use Colloquy in either landscape or portrait mode. This makes it nice, because each of us have our own unique way of being able to read things. Whichever works for you will work on the iPhone now!

Now, listen closely… within a week of this video being posted, I will be giving away five licenses for Colloquy for the iPhone! There is only one requirement:

You have to join Twitter, and send this message: @chrispirillo Gee I’d like a free license for Colloquy for the iPhone. Thank you..

I’m looking forward to hearing from you, and choosing five of you randomly to chat with us from your iPhone or iPod Touch!

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

Subservient Chris Raising Money for WyldRyde

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:31:32 +0000

If you were with us last New Years’ Eve, you know what we have in store for you this year! If you weren’t, you truly have no idea what you missed! What is a Subservient Chris, you might be asking right now… well, let me take a few moments to fill you in!

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Burger King Subservient Chicken. This idea was based off of that lovely little chicken! The WyldRyde IRC Network is where my live chat is hosted – for free! The people who maintain this network are hard working and dedicated, and each of them volunteer their time and expertise. I am indebted to them for everything they do for me, day in and day out. WyldRyde depends on money raised via donations and ad revenue in order to keep the servers running. WyldRyde is home to more than 700 chat rooms, all of which are absolutely free to set up and use!

Last year, I learned that the head of the network, usrbingeek had been paying a large portion of the network’s bills out of his own pocket. I decided that since he and his staff give so much to me, it was time I give back to them. Thus, the idea of Subservient Chris was born! For a minimum $10.00 donation to the network, people could make silly demands of me. I had to sing, dance, put my dog on my head, and even ended the night in a dress! Any request is granted once a donation is made, as long as it’s nothing illegal or degrading. Remember, I have final veto power on any and all requests!

Yes – you guessed it! We’re going to revive Subservient Chris again this year! Join us on New Years’ Eve from 11pm – 2am EST (8pm – 11pm PST) while we ring in the new year by raising money to help meet WyldRyde’s fundraising goals! I promise, this is going to be an event you won’t want to miss!

Once again, thank you so much to usrbingeek and his entire Staff for everything you do. You guys are amazing, and I am so thankful to call WyldRyde my home!

How to Use Chat Room Etiquette

coupons — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:35:17 +0000

This is Ashryne’s submission for the HP Magic Giveaway. Feel free to leave comments for this article as you see fit – your feedback is certainly welcomed! If you’d like to submit your own how-to, what-is, or top-five list, you can send it to me. Views and opinions of this writer are not necessarily my own:

The chat room is a wonderful place where people can unite and maybe even help one another. With everything that is good, bad follows closely behind. This guide will explain proper chat room etiquette and provide examples.

Excessive Exclamation or Question Marks – One of the common problems in a chat room is the need to emphasize certain questions, or statements by included 2 billion question marks, or exclamation marks. As an example, Johnny has a question for Chris. Johnny asks Chris “oh no my pet monkey stuck a banana in my PC and now it is broken!!!!????? Help !!!” What would be the proper way for Johnny to ask this question? Well, Johnny could try to ask the question in a much calmer, more relaxed manner. The real question is how did Johnny’s pet monkey get the banana in the PC? Instead, Johnny should ask Chris “my pet monkey stuck a banana into the computers fan and broke my PC. Can you help me?” As we can see by the proper method, Johnny is much calmer and actually explains how the monkey got the banana into the PC.
Foul Language – The second problem that comes up in a chat room discussion is the need to compensate for a lack of who knows what by excessive swearing. Excessive swearing not only causes the chat member to look foolish, but can also be quite annoying. For example, the chat at live.pirillio.com censors filter words and replaces them with (censored) so anyone who swears has that word replaced. This example will be using (censored). Johnny is now angry at Chris because Chris has not responded to his question within 2 seconds. Johnny tells Chris “(censored) your teeth (censored) because you are so cool (censored) my (censored) hug.” Obviously Johnny has a lot to compensate for in this example. By this point in time, an op or halfop would have already removed the issue at hand. Johnny could have kept his cool and used proper chat room etiquette to have addressed the problem. I guess now Johnny will not know why his monkey likes to stick bananas in fans. The proper way to do this would be for Johnny to wait a minimum of ten minutes for a response before speaking and say something like “Chris my good fellow, is there an email address at which I can send you my question in case you were unable to view it in the chat?” As we can see by the proper method, the attitude of Johnny is still a calm and relaxed one.
EXCESSIVE CAPS – The last situation I will address is that of caps lock. Caps lock is a button that makes all your letters appear uppercase. Caps lock can be considered rude, and yelling. For example, Johnny says “MY PET MONKEY TOTALLY ROCKS.” Okay Johnny, I think we get the idea. You have just yelled on the internet, how sad. The proper way to say this would be “My pet monkey totally rocks”. This method gets exactly the same point across, without you getting kicked from the chat.

Remember, always use proper chat etiquette.

How Should You Act on IRC (Internet Relay Chat)?

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:30:11 +0000

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

Miikee writes: “After reading a couple posts on the new Geeks website related to your chat room on WyldRyde, I came up with the top 5 things to consider when participating in a busy chat room.”

Learn the room. Don’t expect to be the center of attention in the room. Trying to be will make you an unpopular chatter from the start. Spend time watching and learning what are the accepted practices of the room. Remember, the object is to become an accepted member of the community, not the room trouble maker.
Don’t be the room cop. A busy chat room always has several OPS as well as appropriate Bots to maintain the room. If someone is out of line, let the OPS handle it. Acknowledging an out of line chatter only encourages them. This is reminiscent of the class clown in school.
Direct comments to individuals by name. A busy room will have discussions on several topics going on at once. To make sure your comment is directed to the correct topic and person, start the comment out with that persons name. Ie: Joechat, yes I had that problems with Windows Vista too.
Don’t private message someone without asking first. I relate this to walking into a persons home without knocking on the door first. Also be aware that it is against the rules on the WyldRyde network to do so.
Be yourself. It is very easy getting caught up in the world of being something your not. People assume that since it’s online, it’s not real. They figure I will never meet anyone here so what does it matter. This world we live in has become much smaller with technology. The fibs you tell in one community may come back and bite you when exposed in another community. Remember, the folks on the other end are real, treat them as you would the friend down the street and your circle of real friends will become much larger.

Thanks, Miikee for that list. Those are all great points, and good reminders on how to act in chat. I have to thank all of the Mods (Ops and HalfOps) in my channel. They are a great team, and spend countless hours of their own time (for free) to help keep things running smoothly in the channel. They’re a great group of people, and the chat wouldn’t be successful without them.

For more information about how to handle yourself in my chat room, check out the Chat Room Rules and Guidelines, Why Can’t I Talk in the Chat Room? and How Do I Get Voice (+V) in Chat?.

FirstRSS ERROR: "http://shop.tagjag.com/products/chat" NOT FOUND!

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

How Can You be a Good Member of our Live Community?

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:16:36 +0000

One of our community members took it upon himself to put together a top five list of tips for being a part of our live community. You’ll see new people come into the chat room all the time, demanding a “show”, or telling me to hurry up and “DO SOMETHING ALREADY”. What you have to realize is my live stream isn’t about always putting on a show. I am simply streaming my life. If I am busy working, I am probably not paying attention to the camera or the chat. I do interact with everyone as much as I possibly can, though. Keep in mind that I’m human! I have a life outside my stream, just like you do. Here are Zeph’s tips to all of you:

You don’t need to sit there and watch the stream the entire time. Sometimes Chris’ stream works as a nice “radio station” of sorts, and just listening throughout your day can be quite entertaining or informative. As long as you have a generally good internet connection, you should be able to do regular browsing of the internet at the same time.
Use an IRC client for the chat. Although the Flash IRC under the stream window is good, it does not have the functionality of a regular IRC client. There are plenty of different clients for each operating system, some free, some not. I personally use mIRC in Windows, and Konversation in Linux. There are also Colloquy and Linkinus for Macs. There are plenty more out there, try them all and see what you feel comfortable with. The IRC server is WyldRyde.
Be respectful in the chat. The channel Mods greatly prefer users to keep a level of etiquette while using the chat room. This does not mean you cannot have fun, but be friendly about it. Keep the caps lock off, as it is considered rude, and viewed as yelling. Do not spam the chat room, and do not keep repeating the same question over and over again. This will only make people think less of you. Above all, do not ask for voice for the chat. This will only set you further away from being a trusted user.
Don’t just direct your questions to Chris. There are plenty of technologically inclined people in the #Chris chat room. First you should try “Googling” about your question. If you do not get any good results, or do not think you understand what the results are telling you, ask us in the chat room. There is likely some one that can help you, and there are plenty that are willing to.
Finally, please understand that Chris is a busy man. People need to make a living, and Chris is no exception. When he is not helping the tech community, he often has many things to deal with that pertain to his work. Just remember that Chris has his own life, and cannot be looking at the chat twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If Chris does not respond to you in chat, do not complain. If Chris is away from his desk, don’t worry, he’ll be back.

Those are all excellent tips, Zeph. A few other things to make note of here:

Be sure you are familiar with the WyldRyde Network Rules. My channel is one of hundreds on the network. You not only have to follow my channel rules, but those of the network as well.
WyldRyde also has a nice FAQ page to help you understand how things work on IRC, and WyldRyde in particular.
Feel free to sign up for a free account on the WyldRyde forums. Once you do, you’ll have access to the area set aside just for us.

Most importantly, make yourself familiar with our channel rules and guidelines. Being a part of the live community is a lot of fun, and can be very rewarding. However, being a member isn’t a given right… it’s a privilege.

Accessing IRC Chat via a Web Browser: Mibbit

Chris Pirillo — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:31:09 +0000

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

Just to prove that all sorts of people come into our chat room, I’m going to leave the chat unmoderated… which can be quite dangerous at times. You’d be surprised. Even at 11:30 at night, we have several hundred people awake and talking live with us. What if you can’t get into our chat? You could always try Mibbit.

Mibbit is very green, which makes sense since their logo is a little tree frog. You can go to this site and search for keywords across many different IRC servers. You can turn up chat rooms you never knew existed. Be careful when jumping into a new chat community. Always take time to get to know the regulars, and how they interact with each other.

Connecting to us is easy with Mibbit. In the “Server” drop down box, choose “Irc.WyldRyde.Org”. In the channel box, enter #Chris. Make sure you add the # sign when you try to join any channel. In the nickname box, choose a name you want to use in the channel. If you have registered your nickname on WyldRyde, you can enter your password in the box.

Now you can chat on IRC with us from anywhere in the world, on any machine out there… as long as you have a browser and an internet connection. You no longer have to worry about installing IRC software, nor do you need to worry about whether the machine will allow a connection to us!

Here are some key features of using Mibbit:

Connect to multiple servers, multiple channels and PMs.
Works on major browsers, iPhone, wii, etc
Full UTF-8 support
Recent chat – When you join a channel, you get some recent chat! Magic!
Typing notify – Now you know when someone is done explaining something
On the fly language translation – Now you’re multi-lingual!
Integrated pastebin – No more having to find a pastebin
Parsing of smilies, links, channels, nicks, mIRC color
Supports SSL IRC connections
Setup auto connects to join your favourite channels
Tab complete on nicknames

FirstRSS ERROR: "http://shop.tagjag.com/products/chat" NOT FOUND!

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

Chat Room Rules and Guidelines

Chris Pirillo — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 21:40:38 +0000

Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

We have an awesome community at live.pirillo.com. We have a lot of fun, and help a lot of people. Here are some tips that Scott sent in to enhance your video viewing experience when visiting our channels. Kat also adds in the top five ways to get yourself kicked OUT of our chat room.

Top 5 Tips to Watching Chris’ Videos (as sent in by Scott Graham):

Be prepared to be introduced to new concepts about technology. Don’t get yourself caught in the “same old, same old”. Get ready to maybe think outside the box, and learn something new every day.
What you watch may not be your opinion. However, keep in mind that the video content comes from questions submitted by the community at large… from people just like you. Yes, you! You are a community member, simply because you are watching this video!
Be a part of the community! Nothing is more rewarding than knowing what you have to say or ask may help another person.
The show is here to help everyone in the spectrum, from Novices to Power Users. Don’t get discouraged if you feel a particular video is beyond your expertise, or even too “easy” for you. Watch another one, and learn!
Most importantly, have fun. Have a sense of humor, and realize you do not already know everything. Be respectful and polite.

Top 5 Ways to get Yourself Kicked OUT of the Chat Room (as submitted and read by Kat):

Be rude and abusive. Come on in, put people down, call them names, say everything and everyone is “stupid” or “lame”… you know what I mean! Being rude is never tolerated, and will get you booted out faster than you can sneeze.
Repeat yourself over and over! Asking your question six times in a row will actually get you an “auto kick” by our chatroom bot. Elle is picky, and doesn’t really like it when you tend to keep saying the same thing over and over. She’ll remove you pretty darn quick. Ask your question, and if someone can answer it or help you, they will.
Use all caps, or curse! The channel has people of all ages in it, from around 12 years old all the way up to ones in their retirement years. We have automatic bad-word censoring on. However, that doesn’t allow you to just curse anyway. You will be warned to stop, then made to leave if you continue. Also, typing in all capital letters all the time is considered “shouting” online, and is just plain rude and hard to read. It won’t get you noticed… other than to get you gone.
Post tons of off topic links. We have auto kicks set up for spamming your Ustream channel, facepunch thread, and others. Please only post links that may be relevant to the conversation of the moment, or links to things of Chris’ at his website or YouTube channel. We don’t mind if you post links to news stories, hardware, or things of that nature. We just don’t want people coming in only to spam their sites and themselves.
Tick off the Kitty. This one is “sort of” a joke rule, but yet it holds true. Don’t be rude to ANY of the ops, and don’t argue with them. All of them volunteer their time to help keep some semblance of order, so that everyone can enjoy their stay. They work hard, and do not go around having “power trips” or kicking people just for laughs. They deserve your respect and appreciation. Oh yeah… and a word of thanks now and then wouldn’t be turned down, either.

If you’re planning to visit, or to stay in our chat room, you might also want to check out the WyldRyde network rules. WyldRyde is free to use, and it is registered as a not-for-profit corporation. Keep in mind you do NOT have “freedom of speech” on this network. If you discuss illegal activities, share files, try to post links to adult images, or are just disruptive in any other awful way… one of us can and will ban you from the entire network. We strive to make our network safe for people of all ages and walks of life to visit and enjoy.

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

Why Can’t I Talk in the Chat Room?

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:42:21 +0000

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – While recording a video earlier, a chatter emailed me to ask why his messages wouldn’t appear in the chat room, and what the problem is. Well… it’s not a problem. It’s a feature we’ve had to enact.

Wicket is a good doggie. He behaves himself, so he is always voiced in the chat room at live.pirillo.com . When we record videos, we found that people would come into the chat room and cause problems. They would say inappropriate things, spam inappropriate links, or just misbehave in a way that made me have to record over. This got to be a huge waste of time. We now moderate the channel during video recording, and any time we have a spammer or anything that gets out of control.

What is moderation? Simple… enabling channel moderation means that no one without a voice (+), halfop (%), or full op (@) can chat. You can type in your client, but your messages will not show up in the channel. How can you get voiced? It’s easy, really. BEHAVE . Watch your language, be courteous and follow the channel rules.

I don’t have many channel rules. They are:

No repeating yourself. We see your question/comment. No one (including me) may have the answer right then, or have the time to answer. We will when and if we can!
Don’t post links! Tiny url links will earn you an automatic kick. Posting links to your youtube, myspace, etc can and will be considered spam. You can post links that are relevant to a conversation, such as a tutorial or help topic.
Turn off the caps lock! This is considered shouting, as most of you know. Talking in all caps will not get you noticed or answered faster. Quite the opposite will happen… you’ll probably get ignored by your fellow chatters, and / or kicked from the channel for repeated abuse.
Be NICE. Don’t be abusive or rude to other chatters. If you have a problem or disagreement with someone, that is fine. Handle yourself in an adult, civilized manner. Don’t attack anyone.
Explicit language is a no-no You know what this means. No profanity, nothing sexual, no racial slurs.
Don’t spam the bots Don’t constantly set off bot triggers, such as !rules, !register, etc. Only use them as needed. They usually trigger themselves anyway on certain keywords. When a user says “How can I register my nick?” you don’t need to do !register. The bot will pick up on it already.

Also, you should make sure you become familiar with the WyldRyde Rules as well. WyldRyde is the IRC network that hosts our live chat, and they have their own rules that must be followed in order to remain on the network. Before you ask… yes, the Constitution guarantees you the Freedom of Speech. However… WyldRyde is a private organization, and private organizations are allowed to set their own rules and standards.

You also need to make sure your nickname is registered on WyldRyde. To do this:

To register your nick type /ns register password email. Replace “password” with a unique password that you can remember and “email” with your email address. Once you have registered your nick name you will need to identify yourself every time you login to the server. To do this type, “/ns IDENTIFY password” and hit enter. If you use an IRC client, you can configure it to identify you automatically when you connect.

Last but not least, here is how you can get a Voice in the channel… and keep it!

Contribute with meaningful and intelligent conversation when the channel is not moderated.
DON’T personally attack others, flood the channel, talk in caps, use sexually explicit language, post useless links, abuse the bots, or argue with the ops.
Be responsible. If someone in the channel is breaking the rules, don’t encourage them. Ignore them, let the ops deal with them, and try to help steer the conversation back on topic.
Have a registered nick.
DON’T ASK FOR VOICE!

And there you have it… why you cannot chat during recording, and how you can become a voiced, trusted chatter!

Want to embed this video in your blog? Use this code:

Formats Available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4) Flash Video (.flv) MP3 Audio (.mp3)

IRC Chat Safety and Security

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:16:58 +0000

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Ted asks “How safe is the chat room? I mean can anyone in the room somehow access someone else’s computer? Is there a website that explains chat rooms and has all the commands listed to do the various things I’ve seen?”

My live chat is located on WyldRyde.org. WyldRyde is just one of many different IRC networks… but of course, we think it’s the best one. The people there are friendly and fun, and the staff are second to none. Many of them even hang out with us in our channel, talking the tech talk and having a good time.

When you’re on IRC, you’re as secure as you want to be. Don’t give out any personal information you don’t want others to know. In this video, I stated that your IP address could be found out by other chatters. Once I was finished recording and went back to listen, I realized I had spoken incorrectly. Yes, I made a mistake. It’s bound to happen at least once in every millenium. WyldRyde masks every chatter’s IP address, so it is not available to others.

Use a firewall, and a router if possible. Follow standard Internet safety practices. Keep in mind that most viruses that can be spread via IRC are done so with a link. Don’t click on links given to you in chat rooms or private messages, unless you are certain about the site you would be going to. If in doubt about someone who you think may be trying to send you to a bad site, you can always join the WyldRyde help channel. To do this, type /join #help into your window, and hit the enter key. You’ll still be connected to my channel, and also now to the #Help channel.

Each IRC network has its own commands. You can view a complete list of WyldRyde commands on their website. As a basic chatter in someone else’s channel, most of the commands you would need are called NickServ comands. These allow you to choose a nickname and register it for free, so that no one else can ever use that name. It allows you to group several nicks together, so that all of them are then registered to you. Other commands you may find useful are the User commands. These cover a wide variety of topics and situations, so take your time reading through them.

I know that some of the chatspeak you will see may be confusing to you. LOL is commonly typed to mean “laughing out loud”. No Dad… that doesn’t mean Lots of Love, though I suppose it could. There are several websites where you can learn chatspeak. Spikes and YourHTMLSource are both good starting points.

IRC can be a great way to make friends, meet like-minded people, and have a good time. Be careful, and you’ll be just fine. Come by and see us any time! You can join us using SC_Thor’s Flash chat applet right on live.pirillo.com, or you can check out WyldRyde’s list of IRC Clients. Be sure to read the WyldRyde Rules and check out the FAQs.

Want to embed this video in your blog? Use this code:

Formats Available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4) Flash Video (.flv) MP3 Audio (.mp3)

Flash IRC Script

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:09:47 +0000

Ever since I can remember, we’ve been relying on a Java applet to provide visitors an interface to IRC – without requiring them to install a separate client, sign up for an account, or fire up a proprietary program. We didn’t choose Java because it’s an amazing technology, however. Java in the browser is slow as molasses, and I’d just as soon shove icepicks under my toenails than use it.

But, until today, we had no choice but to use Java for Web-accessible IRC.

TFlash has finally been designed and released by ThunderIT Consulting Inc. – and we’re already using it on our live site. The script can be embedded anywhere, which means that the community can start building desktop widgets which include not only our live feed, but the accompanying chat room as well.

Schedule Bot in IRC

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 18 May 2007 01:07:58 +0000

Via Live…

[13:39] <@ChrisPirillo> bear?
[13:39] <@ChrisPirillo> I need wicket to IM me a reminder. :)
[13:39] <@bear> ChrisPirillo, yes?
[13:39] <@ChrisPirillo> I have a dinner appt at 7pm. :)
[13:39] <@bear> ok – shall I code a simple schedule/alarm command?
[13:39] <@ChrisPirillo> Can Wicket IM me to remind me that it’s happening a half hour beforehand?
[13:39] <@bear> sure
[13:39] <@ChrisPirillo> I’m PST right now.
[13:40] <@ChrisPirillo> !task 8:00pm Dinner at I Love Sushi
[13:40] <@bear> I will work on the change
[13:40] <@ChrisPirillo> And Wicket could send me reminders an hour before, then 15 minute increments?
[13:40] <@bear> !task
[13:40] <@ChrisPirillo> Whatcha think?
[13:40] <@bear> noted – I’ll make it happen