Every day, thousands of people come by this website, and many of them participate on the forums, leave comments on skins, icons, themes etc. One of the things that makes WinCustomize great is the community interaction, the ability to swap opinions and ideas, and even just regular everyday chit-chat. Forums are great for community building, but sometimes you want a more immediate reaction, or you're bored and want someone to entertain you for a little while. For those who want more interactivity from their WinCustomize experience, I'd like to remind everyone that we have an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel on the Stardock IRC server, #WinCustomize on irc.stardock.com
If you're wondering how to get on IRC and join us in our revelry and hijinks, here's some help:
If you want to join up and chat with us, you'll need to have an IRC client. Here are three programs that you might use to connect:
- mIRC (Windows) - http://www.mirc.com/
This is one of the standard IRC clients for Windows. It's shareware and after 30 days or so it will nag you to pay, but it will never lose functionality.
- IRCLE (Mac OS) - http://www.ircle.com/
IMO, the best IRC Client for the Mac. You have to register this after 30 days or else the program shuts down after 30min of use. If you're a Mac user though and use IRC much at all, it's worth the price.
- Stardock Central (Windows) -https://www.stardock.com/products/sdcentral/
Did you know that Stardock's software distribution tool, Stardock Central (SDC) has a built-in IRC client? While it's not as full-featured as mIRC or IRCLE, it does the job if you're just looking to dabble with the world of online chat.
In addition to those three there are other programs like Trillian, XChat and so on that do the job just as well. You'll need to read the documentation on each program to learn how to set your user information (Nickname etc) and how to connect to a server. If you have questions regarding the three applications listed above, post them as a comment and I'll try and answer them as quickly as I can.
Now, once you have your IRC client downloaded, installed and configured, it's time to join the fun! Here's what you'll do:
- From the Console/Status screen you'll type the following command and then hit enter:
/server irc.stardock.com
- Once connected to the server (when all the text stops scrolling), you join the WinCustomize chat room by typing this:
/join #WinCustomize
You're in! The list of people in the room should be displayed somewhere on the right of your screen, now you can chat your heart out!