Mouse Clix

By: Hobie Lunin

"Some enchanted evening……"

With apologies to Enzio Pinza, a chat room was not the kind of room he was singing about. But first, what is chat anyway? This is a question I get from newbies to the cyber world. It is very similar to e-mail but it happens more quickly and so both (or even multiple) participants can be typing an "instant message" to each other. There is usually a small screen that you can have appear on your monitor that will tell you which of your "buddies" are on line. As soon as their name is highlighted as being "on-line" you can start messaging by clicking on their name opening a window to type in. The messages themselves are shown on the screens of the participants so you can follow the chat. This technique is called personal chat, as you are selecting those people you want to chat with. I will discuss Chat Rooms next, but first, how do you get personal chat. The first thing to do is determine which of your friends and family you wish to do this with and find out if they are already using a chat program. For instance, if your cousin is an AOL subscriber and uses the program AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), then you probably should start with that. You do NOT need to be a subscriber of AOL's Internet service to use AOL Chat. Just go to the AOL website (www.aol.com) and look for the download AOL messenger link on the opening page. You will have to register (no charge) and give them a user name (nickname) you want to use for AOL chat.

After you have downloaded it and you can access the window (AOL leaves an icon on your desktop and one in the taskbar, it looks like a little running man.) Then, enter the user name of your "buddy", usually the first portion of their AOL e-mail address. When you are on-line, open the AIM Window and see whether your buddy or buddies are on line (you can actually keep two chat conversations going at once by opening a second window if more than one of your friends are on-line at the same time.) In addition to personal chat, some services offer voice chat. All you need is a computer microphone (available at Wal-Mart and other places for about $10). I have used Yahoo voice chat successfully and as the incoming voice sound comes from the speakers it is really great for communicating with family when there are several members present at each end. The detail of how voice chat works is available from the service. After you do it once, it is quite easy to be able to repeat the process.

A chat room is something a bit different. This is chat unrestrained. There are many people at chatting at once. This is the original chat, IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and is still going strong. There are a number of places to download the software for this, however, to get the flavor of it I suggest going to www.yahoo.com and try one of their chat rooms (click on chat near the top left of Yahoo’s home page), and then follow the instructions.

What you will see when you "enter" chat room is a screen that has the names of the participants (user names) down one side of the screen. The rest of the screen is scrolling fast with one or two line comments from all the people that are participating in the group chat. Each message has the username of the subscriber followed by their comment. Be prepared for some very raw conversation, although it is not supported by the sponsoring service, they are really not able to stop it. This is especially true in the "adult" chat room. If you see something someone says and you want to respond to it, you type your line in a short wide field just below the main field where the chat is going on and hit Send. Your message will then appear along with all the others. If someone responds to you, you can send another message or two and then invite them to a personal chat similar to the type of chat described earlier in this article. To find the details on how to do this follow the links to more info about chat. The chat rooms are categorized in a number of ways: subject, interests, age group and location, to mention just a few. There are many other chat options. To see a huge list of chat rooms and subjects, just put the word "chat" into the field of any convenient search engine and then click on Search.

If you wish to use an AOL Chat Room and you are not a member, go to www.aol.com, and scroll down until you see "People and Chat" then click on "hot chats." You will have to download AOL Instant Messenger (no charge). For MSN, go to www.msn.com and then find People and Chat at the top of the page. Categories of chat are listed there and you can either get a free "passport" or enter as a "guest."

Summarizing, personal chat such as AOL Instant Messenger and the Yahoo equivalent are great for staying in touch with those who are on-line frequently and like the fun of "talking" with your keyboard as an alternate to sending e-mail. Chat Rooms are a little more of a challenge unless you make arrangements with someone to "meet" them in a chat room. You will need to know what nickname they are using in that particular Chat Room.

If you are hoping, on some enchanted evening, to "meet a stranger across a crowded (chat) room", good luck! It will be a great accomplishment if you succeed.

Next time in Mouse Clix: Spreadsheets.

Hobie Lunin will answer questions at hlunin@email.com. See http://mouseclix.tripod.com for previous articles and other information.