We published a great article by Chris Heilmann over the weekend. I am USER, hear me roar!. An impassioned plea on behalf of users everywhere.

Hi there, you want me, I know you do. You got something to sell or you want to be heard, or you want to share. In any case - you need me. To make matters worse, you don't know anything about me.

I could be old, young, boy, girl, man, woman, handicapped or fully abled. I can choose from a great variety of means to use the internet and technology to control it, and you don't stand much chance to know what I use.

If you're interested in the thought processes that your users go through, and why you may be (inadvertently) pissing them off, I strongly recommend that you have a read.

Also Reading

• Some Like It Hot - Lawrence Lessig examines the history of the media industry and its growth from piracy.
• The End-All Guide to Small-Screen Web-Dev - (as long as the webmonkey site is alive)

Busy little day down at the evolt.org paddock...

The chumpbot based spoolarama for #evolt (on freenode fact fans) is now being indexed by google. Thanks in main to emkay's great work with the XSLT templates, meaning that we're serving XHTML instead of vanilla XML.

Of course I have to declare a vested interest as I built the CSS, so if it looks shit, that's my fault.

We've also just had confirmation that the UK Mirror Service will be acting as a mirror for the evolt.org browser archive. Thanks to neuro and John for getting them interested in the first place.

evolt.org celebrated our 5th birthday yesterday.

Elfur , Stef and Joel have written some articles to commemorate the event and to look forward to what the future may hold.

Here's to another 5 years.

/me raises a glass.

<p>IRC (Internet Relay Chat) has been around since about 1988. It's a real time talk system where people can gather together in various channels (think of them as virtual rooms) and talk about whatever interests them. Each channel has a name which usually outlines its main topic of conversation.</p>

<p>To participate in IRC you need a client program at your end (for example mIRC on Windows) and the details of the server you wish to connect to.</p>

<h2>Channel Info</h2>

<p>#evolt, the evolt.org IRC channel is hosted on the <a href="http://www.freenode.net">Freenode network</a>. To connect all you need to do is point your IRC client at either <strong>irc.freenode.net</strong> or <strong>irc.evolt.org</strong>. If you're using a GUI IRC client then have a look at your clients documentation to find out how you connect to a server. If you're using a command line IRC client then type:</p>

/server irc.evolt.org

<p>Barring any major problems you will find yourself connected to one of the pool of freenode.net servers.</p>
<p>(Don't worry about what <code>/server</code> means right now. I'll explain IRC commands a little later).</p>

<h2>Now What Do I Do???</h2>

<p>Once you've connected to the server, you then need to tell it which channel you would like to join. To do that you type in:</p>

/join #evolt

<p>and you should find yourself in the evolt.org channel.</p>

<p>To join in the conversation, just start typing. Everytime you hit enter, the line you've typed is echoed to the channel. Yep, it's that simple.</p>

<h2>Interacting With The Server</h2>

<p>As well as talking directly with the other people on the channel, you can also send the server special commands. These commands have a number of functions, but the one thing they have in common is that they all start with a '/'.</p>

<p>A full list of possible commands is beyond the scope of this intro, but here are some of the most common.</p>

<dl>
  <dt><code>/me [action]</code></dt>

  <dd>
    Will result in your persona in the channel performing an action. For example,

/me scratches his nose would result in everyone in the channel seeing garrett scratches his nose

  <dt><code>/msg &lt;user&gt; [message]</code></dt>

  <dd>
    Will send a private message to &lt;user&gt;. Example:

/msg djc hey! where's my beer gone? would result in djc getting a private message from me saying hey! where's my beer gone? If djc wanted to reply in private he would address a /msg back at me.

  <dt><code>/part [channel] [reason]</code></dt>

  <dd>The /part command will cause you to leave the channel specified. If you tag on a reason then that reason will be echo'd to the channel as you leave. <strong>Very important note:</strong> if you want to supply a reason for leaving, you <strong>have</strong> to supply the channel. Otherwise the server gets confused.</dd>

  <dt><code>/quit [reason]</code></dt>

  <dd>Similar to the /part command, but it will disconnect you from the server as well.</dd>
</dl>

<h2>Netiquette</h2>

<p>As with all the other digital media that you've been using (web, email, forums etc) IRC has its own list of rules that aid the communication process. A full list of them is beyond this introduction (see the list of <a href="#links">further links</a>) but suffice to say they're pretty similiar to the rules for <a href="http://lists.evolt.org/index.cfm/a/listinfo" title="thelist rules">thelist</a> that we all know and love.</p>

<p>Just remember, there's a person on the other end of that nickname, so keep it friendly.</p>

<h2>thebot</h2>

<p>Now, when I said that there is a person on the other end of a nickname, that's not always strictly true. Allow me to introduce you to thebot.</p>

<p>thebot is #evolt's very own, ummm, bot. Bots are programs that sit in IRC channels and do helpful stuff (most of the time). thebot is based on the <a href="http://www.infobot.org" title="infobot website" target="_blank">infobot code</a> and so you should see that site for more complete instructions on what it can do. But here's a quick taster.</p>

<dl>
  <dt><code>thebot, seen garrettc</code></dt>

  <dd>thebot will return the last time I was on the channel and the last thing I said.</dd>

  <dt><code>thebot, exchange 10USD to GBP</code></dt>

  <dd>Convert 10 U.S. Dollars to U.K. Pounds (will work with any ISO currency codes).</dd>

  <dt><code>thebot, evolt</code></dt>

  <dd>Will return a list of the current evolt.org front page headlines</dd>
</dl>

<h2><a id="links" name="links">Further Reading &amp; Links</a></h2>

<h3>About IRC</h3>

<ul>
  <li><a href="http://www.irchelp.org" title="IRC Help" target="_blank">http://www.irchelp.org</a></li>

  <li><a href="http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/faq.html" title="IRC Help FAQ's" target="_blank">IRC FAQs from irchelp.org</a></li>

  <li><a href="http://www.newircusers.com" title="New IRC Users" target="_blank">http://www.newircusers.com</a></li>

</ul>

<h3>Software</h3>

<ul>
  <li><a href="http://www.mirc.com" title="mIRC" target="_blank">mIRC - Windows</a></li>

  <li><a href="http://www.xchat.org" title="X-Chat" target="_blank">X-Chat - Linux, *nix, Windows, BSD, MacOSX</a></li>

  <li><a href="http://www.macirc.com" title="MacIRC" target="_blank">MacIRC - MacOS &lt; X (no longer being developed)</a></li>
</ul>

<h2>Conclusion</h2>

<p>IRC is an incredibly useful tool, and hell, it's fun too. I hope this primer has helped introduce you to IRC and that you'll pop into the channel and have a chat sometime. It's a great place to get a quick answer to that niggling HTML question, or even to just kill 30 mins over lunch.</p>

<luminosity> me grins

Well that was an absolutely fantastic weekend. We all seem to be suffering right now, but it was worth it. Thanks to all our speakers and everyone who turned up.

I've got loads of pictures, and some notes I need to type up, but in the mean time neuro is collating links to peoples experiences as they go up.

Camp EUvolt is filling up, speakers and panelists are finalising their Powerpoint slides and Mike has no doubt found the bar. Once I've done all I need to do here then I'll be joining him.

Charge your glasses, the 2003 evolt.org conference is open for business!

Set up the import of evolt.org's RSS feed. I now have a fear that my content syndication will get out of hand!

Isaac and Kate are currently in the middle of recreating Around The World In 80 Days (well, not really, but it seems that way) and are putting up pictures as they go.

There are some absolutely stunning pictures up there, including a great shot of a sunset over the Houses Of Parliment in London, and some breathtaking pictures of Machu Picchu.

Bloody graphic designers! Far too talented for their own good. Puts my efforts to shame.