Wednesday Night Chat

[The Legendary Shark]

We're waiting for you...

[Peter Wolf]

We're waiting for you...

I am waiting for Paltalk to make their chatroom service compatiable for Mac users.

I will still be waiting at Xmas time and beyond.........

[The Legendary Shark]

 

[The Legendary Shark]

Hey Peter, can you access the chat through the website without downloading the chat client?

[TordelBack]

Dunno about Pete, but I tried again through the in-browser applet, but they're still not accepting registrations.

[House of Usher]

Sorry, couldn't make it. Been away for a few days and my laptop is still bollixed.

[Peter Wolf]

I got as far as downlading the Applet [Paltalk Express] and the relevant flash download and got to the point of registering except every password that i chose to use was somehow invalid even though i have absolutely no idea what a valid password is.I just assumed that a password would contain letters of the alphabet but evidently not.

Since they are not inviting registrations then there wasnt much point registering but that might just be IE which i dont use because its Bill Gates Shite .No idea really but i wasnt prepared to sit here endlessly submitting passwords only to have them rejected because they were invalid.

Unable to complete registration.

[The Legendary Shark]

Damn. That's so annoying. I'd really like you to be able to get in here. I'll look into it for next week.

[Bouwel]

Having had a quick glance it looks as if PalTalk will accept registration, but only if you download PalTalk Scene (The Yahoo/Messenger-a-like chat client application). As there's still no Mac version (which is odd) I can see that the web-browser is the only way to go for Mac users at the moment without fiddling around with emulators. I'll have a dig around andf see if I can come up with something.

We'll get ye' on th' chat yet, Peter!

-Bouwel-

(Edited to add: The servers are down as of this post for hardware upgrade)

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I can't remember what we talked about last night

[Odd_Bloke]

Is there any reason not to just use IRC for these chats?

[The Legendary Shark]

I guess there is no reason not to use IRC. The only reason I chose Paltalk was entirely down to the fact that I've been using it for years with very few problems. Also, I know nothing about IRC, so if anybody wants to investigate that possibility and the regulars to the Yap Shop don't mind, I have no problem with transferring to another service.

What does everyone think? Now we've got this thing up and running, should we look for a better service or are we happy where we are?

[Bouwel]

I use Irc a lot and it has better cross-platform support. Some of the clients can be twitchy to set-up if you're not used to it, although it's fairly easy to talk people through the process. Anyone who can work out how to access the internet can work out how to access Irc.

The main problem with Irc is that we need a server to open the room on, and most servers are full of idiots. The main ones would be either Undernet or Efnet, although other smaller servers do exist (I frequent a few furry servers for commission reasons, for example).

The other option is that we run a server ourselves for the duration of the chat. I used to do this way back when, but it's not something I've done for ages. The plus point of this is that we would have total control over who comes and goes, something that you wont have on a public server. I'm also wondering if there's any chat-server 'front-end' that can be bolted onto the 2000AD site, as this seems to be the way that other sites I know are going.

Thoughts and comments?

-Bouwel-

[Odd_Bloke]

I use Irc a lot and it has better cross-platform support. Some of the clients can be twitchy to set-up if you're not used to it, although it's fairly easy to talk people through the process. Anyone who can work out how to access the internet can work out how to access Irc.

Yeah, it's really not at all hard.  Especially if we were to use an extant network, as a lot of clients have them programmed in.

The main problem with Irc is that we need a server to open the room on, and most servers are full of idiots. The main ones would be either Undernet or Efnet, although other smaller servers do exist (I frequent a few furry servers for commission reasons, for example).

It's fairly rare for idiots to randomly join a new channel, IME.  OTOH, I normally hang out on Freenode, OFTC and the University of Warwick Computing Society's own IRC server, which probably have fewer idiots than your average IRC server (as they're all largely technical people).  I could check with people at UWCS as to whether they would mind our server being used (it's publicly accessible, so we wouldn't need passwords or anything to access it, and it could definitely cope with the load).

Speaking of password protection, it is possible to password protect IRC rooms, if there was really a problem with idiots.  Just post the password somewhere up here.

The other option is that we run a server ourselves for the duration of the chat. I used to do this way back when, but it's not something I've done for ages. The plus point of this is that we would have total control over who comes and goes, something that you wont have on a public server.

I like this idea.  As the website runs on a CentOS machine, it'd be pretty easy to just install one and start and stop it each week (provided there are techies around to do so).  Even better would be an IRC server dedicated full-time to Twoth/comics chat, but I can understand that requiring some planning.

I'm also wondering if there's any chat-server 'front-end' that can be bolted onto the 2000AD site, as this seems to be the way that other sites I know are going.

Yeah, there are. Mibbit, for example, but there are plenty of others.

Thoughts and comments?

See above.


Dan

[Dog Deever]

I don't know what any of you are talking about! I'm lost!