Contents:
#SLAA Main room:
#SLAA2
(Men's, Women's,
and Business Mtgs.):
If above servers down:
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Connecting To Chat - Using Windows mIRC:This Connecting
To Chat section is divided into four major pages: This step-by-step section is everything you should
need to get the mIRC program working with our room. It is written for people
who know nothing about mIRC. If you want to get deeper into its working,
the built-in help section is pretty good. We have numbered every step, so
that if you email us with any technical support questions, you can reference the
exact point where you are having difficulties. The mIRC program is written
to work with the Windows 95 and subsequent operating systems. In the rare
case that you are using Windows 3.1x (almost no one is anymore), the download
page in Step 4 has an older version of mIRC (v5.91) that will work. Needless
to say, if you are using a Macintosh, WebTV, or any UNIX operating system, this
section is not relevant to your computer. Please check the other sections
in the “Connecting To Chat” section of this website. If your
computer already has the mIRC program on it, please check the programs Help >
About command to see if you are using version 6.03 (the current version as of
August 2002). If not, follow all the steps below. If you already have
version 6.03 installed on your computer, you may start with Step 16 below.
- DOWNLOADING
- Browse to http://www.mirc.com
with your browser of choice (IE-Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, Opera,
etc.).
- Click on the link called “Download mIRC” toward the
left of the screen.
- Under the heading “mIRC 6.03, for Windows 95,
98, 2000, ME, XP, NT etc.” find a location that is close to you.
- Begin
the download in one of three ways:
- Most users can simply click on the
link that you prefer. This sometimes uses a download manager in your computer,
so be aware where the downloaded file will be located (saving to your desktop
is suggested).
- In IE-Explorer and many other browsers, you may right-click
on the link that you prefer and choose “Save Target As...” This
will bring up a “Save As” dialogue box. At the top where you
see “Save In:” use the pull-down arrow and select “Desktop”
as the location. Click on the “Save” button.
- In Netscape
Navigator and Mozilla, you may right-click on the link that you prefer and choose
“Save Link Target As...” This will bring up a “Save As”
dialogue box. At the top where you see “Save In:” use the pull-down
arrow and select “Desktop” as the location. Click on the “Save”
button.
- Feel free to close your browser.
- INSTALLING
- On
your desktop (or the location to which you saved the mIRC installation file in
Step 5), double-click on that icon. With some versions of Windows, you launch
this file by right-clicking on the icon and selecting “Open.”
- In
the dialogue window, click “Next” to continue.
- In the dialogue
window, click “Yes” to continue.
- In the dialogue window, you
can leave the default destination folder alone and the three installation options
checked. Click “Install” to continue.
- You may close
the Start Menu explorer window. This simply shows the icons that are in
your Start Menu.
- In the dialogue window, you can leave “Read mIRC
Help file” unchecked. Please check the “Launch mIRC” checkbox
to continue with Step 14 immediately; otherwise, you will proceed with Step 14
the first time that you launch the mIRC program. Click “Finish”
to continue.
- CONFIGURING
- An “About mIRC”
dialogue box appears over top of the program window. There is an undocumented
checkbox at the bottom left of this dialogue box (to the left of the line that
reads “Visit the mIRC website”). You may uncheck this checkbox to
eliminate this in the future. Then close the dialogue box by clicking on
the “X” in the top right of its title bar.
- A “mIRC Options”
dialogue box will appear. You need to set up a few setting here, but if
you accidentally close this window before all the settings have been made (with
the “OK” or “Cancel” buttons), you can get back to this
dialogue box by using the File > Options command. You would also open
this dialogue box by using the File > Options command if you have used mIRC
in the past and are now concerned about verifying the anonymity of your information.
- Top
center is a field “IRC Network:” with a pulldown and currently displays
“All.” Click on the pull-down arrow and from the alphabetical
list choose “Starlink-irc” or “StarLink-irc” (do not
select StarLink.Org or Starlink or StarlinkOrg if they are listed; this is a common
mistake that will connect you to the wrong server).
- The field below will
read “StarLink-irc: Random server” and this is just fine. See
Step 32 for more information.
- In the “Full Name:” field, type
something fairly anonymous like just your first name.
- In the “Email
Address:” field, type something fairly anonymous like just your first name.
- In
the “Nickname:” field, type the nickname you prefer to use in our
chat room. This is often a first name followed by a last initial without
any spaces, such as “JohnD” or “JaneQ” (omit the quotation
marks).
- In the “Alternative:” field, type the nickname you
prefer to use in our chat room if your primary nickname is in use already.
This is often a first name followed by an underscore followed by a last initial,
such as “John_D” or “Jane_Q” (omit the quotation marks).
- Click
the “OK” button to complete the installation.
- To connect to
StarLink-IRC.Org now (and in the future), click on the “Connect to IRC Server”
button.
- The first time you connect, a “mIRC Channels Folder”
dialogue box will appear listing a lot of rooms that begin with the “#”
symbol. These rooms do not necessarily exist on StarLink-IRC.Org and the
#SLAA Online Group room (and #SCA and #SAA rooms for that matter) will not listed.
At the bottom of the dialogue box, uncheck the “Pop up folder on connect”
checkbox and click on the “OK” button. This dialogue box will
no longer appear in the future when you launch mIRC.
- In the “Status”
window you will be able to read the MOTD (message of the day) and at the bottom
of that window you will see your cursor blinking in what we call an “edit
box.”
- In the Status Window’s edit box, type “/join #slaa”
without the quotation marks followed by the Enter/Return key on your keyboard
to join the SLAA chat room. Uppercase and lowercase do not matter.
Similarly you would type “/join #slaa2” or “/join #sca”
or “/join #saa” to join those respective chat rooms.
- You will
now have the #SLAA Online Group chat window over top of the Status Window.
The first thing you will see is our welcome greeting which lists all the meeting
times. This greeting (sent to your nickname by CStar) and the room topic
(in the title bar) indicate that you are in the #SLAA chat room. Even if
it is not a regular meeting time, you might find other recovery friends simply
“hanging out.” One nickname you will always find present is
CStar; this is not a person, but rather a computer “bot” so do not
be offended that IT does not talk to you. Similarly, in the #SCA room, both
CStar and SCAbot are computers.
- When you are finished chatting, you may
exit mIRC by either choosing File > Exit or by clicking on the “X”
in the top right of the mIRC title bar (the topmost title bar).
- You will
now notice a mIRC icon on your desktop and in your start menu.
- You may
delete the mIRC installation file (the icon named mirc603 and looks like an open
box) from your computer.
- Back in Step 18, we see that we are connecting
with a random StarLink-IRC server. By default, even if you click on the
pull-down arrow, it will be the only one listed. Once you have used mIRC
a few times, you might care to improve upon this, allowing you to select a closer
or more stable server to use by personal choice. StarLink-IRC is made up
of eight servers (five in the US, two in Canada, and one in the UK). By
adding these nine servers, you can specifically select which server you wish to
use when connecting. Below are the detailed instructions:If you have trouble
connecting, open the mIRC program. choose the icon , right below the standard:
"File, View Favorites" etc. menu bar. You will see see a folder with
a hammer icon on it. Open that folder. On the left menu, choose "Connect"
then choose the one that says "Server." Open the pull down menu that
says IRC Network. and choose Starlink-IRC (not starlink.org) Right below the drop
down menu that says IRC Server, choose "Add" You must fill every field
that is in this 'Add" section (except password) or it work. For discription
give it a name so you can find it again in the server list such as "shortcut"
or "failsafe" or "trouble". The group field will always be
Starlink-IRC, in the "Port" field put commas behind the default 6667,
and contine to list 6663 ,6664, 6665, 6666, 6668, 6669, 7001. Be sure and use
the commas. You do not need to put anything in the password box.
- In the
field called "IRC Server" type in the following IP address: 66.111.34.216
- Click
on the “Add” button
Now when you try to connect, mIRC
will have several different ports it can choose from to get on to the Starlink
network. Now when you choose the Server options, you will notice that your specially
named server is in the pull down menu. Whatever you named it "trouble",
"failsafe" etc. Now just choose "connect to server" and you
will be there! |
