There are several possibilities to chat with people: you can use IRC channels, you can use Talk command or you can use a specified client. You can have IRC already installed on your system (in that case just type 'IRC'), but if you haven't access to your ISP's machine, you need a client. The most used IRC client is MIRC, but it is a shareware program. However you can use VIRC (Visual IRC), because it is freeware and it is a good software. Even if IRC is quite popular, you have to know some commands to use it. But you can chat with people by means of particular programs such as POWWOW or ICQ. Powwow is pretty known, but ICQ is 'the chat client' by now. So let's see how to use ICQ (I seek you):ICQWhen you are not connected to the Internet, ICQ 'sleeps' and you can see only its icon on the Windows' taskbar. So:
But as soon as you connect to the Internet...ICQ wakes up:
ICQ assigns you an Universal Identifier Number (UIN) and that is a number to identify you univocally among ICQ users. In the above example there are 3 users added to your contact list and your UIN is: 11111111. But how does ICQ works? Well, every times you connect to the Internet your ISP assign you a dynamic IP address. An IP address identify one computer on the net univocally (for example the Netscape site's IP address is: 207.200.75.4 and it is always the same, in fact you could type it in your browser instead of 'http://home.netscape.com'). But you can't connect to your friends' computers by using their IP addresses, because they have dynamic IP addresses (in fact, every times you connect to the net - by means of a ISP - the ISP assigns you a different IP address) so you can't guess your friends' IP addresses because they change every times. In other words a site has a fixed IP address (all know its address) but an user hasn't a fixed address (nobody can know his IP address). But ICQ make the miracle: in fact when an ICQ user connect to the Internet, say user Mike with UIN '12345678', his ICQ wake up and try to connect to the Mirabilis' server (Mirabilis is the company which developed ICQ), where there is a database containing all ICQ users' information. So ICQ - at the Mirabilis server - search for the user '12345678' inside of its database (a kind of telephone directory) and update its information (the Mike's IP address). When you connect to the Internet, your ICQ does the same thing. Now you can contact your friend Mike, because ICQ knows the Mike's IP address (Mike's ICQ told it to the Mirabilis' ICQ which told it to your ICQ)... In other words now you know the Mike's IP address, and you can chat with him! But let's see ICQ's features... When you click on the 'ICQ' icon on the taskbar, a popup menu will come out:
Now, if you press the 'ICQ' button, another window will come out: the Main Menu. Let's see all ICQ features: |
