Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is old-school chat. Free Geek uses it to run a real-time group chat salon. Free Geek staff, volunteers and enthusiasts from all over the galaxy have been known to hang out in our chat room. It may seem quiet in there at times; people often have IRC running in the background while they do other things like surfing the internet or cooking dinner.

If you have your own IRC client, you can find us on:

irc.freenode.net   #freegeek-van

If you've never used IRC, or don't have an IRC client,

enter through the magic portal HERE.

Instructions: you'll see a little box that says 'Nickname' which you can change to a nickname of your choice (without spaces). Then hit 'Login' and you will see a page divided into sections. If you type in the little rectangle at the bottom of the page and hit 'Enter' on your keyboard, the other people in the room will see your message. There is a list of people in the room on the right hand side. If you want to get a specific person's attention, try typing their name and waiting around for a while.  

For more information on IRC, you may want to check out some of the following information:

Wikipedia entry about IRC

What is IRC, and how does it work?