Tutorial: Using the GeekBeat.TV IRC Chatroom

The Geek Beat IRC chat room is a busy place with lots of geeks talking and hanging out. It’s also the hub for viewer conversation during Geek Beat Live. You should definitely check it out, but maybe you’re not that familiar with IRC and don’t know how to get started. That’s what we’ll talk about here.

I am going to show you how to connect and register an account to our IRC room using the free Chatzilla add-on for Firefox. The process is similar on other clients as well if you don’t want to use Chatzilla, or in case Firefox isn’t your main browser.

The easiest and quickest way to get connected is to check if your chosen IRC client will accept the IRC URL (irc://irc.geekbeat.tv/geekbeat). If the client pops up and connects to the Geekbeat IRC Room when you click on the link then you are set there. If you need to connect manually, here are the steps:

Open your chosen client. Some clients will need you to click on “Add Server”; with others, like Chatzilla, you can just type /server irc.geekbeat.tv to connect to our server. Once that is done, type /j #geekbeat and it should allow you to join the main geekbeat channel.

Now that you are in the channel, I will show you how to register an account and even how to auto-login and open the geekbeat channel when you open the client.

First, type /nick nickname and replace nickname with what you want your nickname to be. Like I go by Montisaquadeis, so I would type /nick Montisaquadeis, for example.

Now that you have set the nickname, you need to get the name registered to you so that others can’t use it. This is so that others can not impersonate you, or for eventual assigning of moderation priviledges.

Type /msg NickServ REGISTER password youremail@example.com to register the nick you are currently using. To register another nickname, type /msg NickServ REGISTER nickname password youremail@example.com and it will register the nick you specify.

Now that your nick is registered, you can set up to auto-connect and autologin when you open Chatzilla. These steps may differ depending on your client.

Right click on the room name in the tabs on the bottom of the window and click “Open This Channel at Startup” to auto open the channel.

Now that that is out of the way, we will move on to auto-logging in. First click on ChatZilla at the top. Select Preferences. Once the window is open, you want to click on irc.geekbeat.tv in the list on the left. Once you have done that, click on the Lists tab and you will see Auto-perform at the top of the first section. That is where we will add the command to auto-login to the the server. Click add and type in /msg NickServ identify Nickname Password replacing nickname with your nick and password with your password. Once that is done click ok and it will be added.

Once it’s added, you are pretty much done with everything and can enjoy interacting with the rest of us in chat. Happy chatting, people! Hope to see more of you guys in chat on days other then Friday or when there is a special live show going on.