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Net Basics: Chat and Newsgroups |
We all have our groups that we are part of - be they kitty
parties, building associations, prayer groups, whatever. All these
consist of people who meet to discuss and share views on a certain
topics. And you'd be surprised at the virtual version that's available
on the Net - it's called IRC.
IRC (or Internet Relay Chat for those who aren't technoids),
is a multiple user, multiple channel, live chat. In simple English,
this is basically a way for anyone on the Net to have live keyboard
conversations with people all around the world on variety of subjects.
Once you go to the chat area on the Net, you'll get a list of
channels currently available, and how many users are participating
in each. Once you find a channel of your choice ( from religion
to the occult, and from intellectual discussions to banal ones),
and join that channel, you start feverishly typing away to glory
on your keyboard to "talk" - whatever you type is broadcast
live to everyone else on the channel. Every user is known by a
nickname, so others don't have the faintest idea of who you are
or what you look like unless you choose to reveal it. A chava
friend of mine, chatted up a "Madhuri" on a "friendly
channel", only to discover later that "Madhuri"
was a guy from Madras, who chose that name because people never
talked to him when his nick name was Ram !.
The most common statement used when talking about the Net is
- "you can get anything and everything on the Net".
Almost true, and you can often get a lot of information on home
pages. But there's another unexploited way to easily get very
specific information from the Net. For instance, if you want to
get inflammatory news, you know which Marathi newspaper to get.
If you're looking for Bollywood gossip, you know which mags to
buy.
On the Net there's something called Newsgroups. Newsgroups
are certain message areas that store messages from Net users about
a specific topic - sometimes too specific. For instance there's
a newsgroups dedicated to toe - sucking (?!). So if you have that
fetish, you could log in everyday and find out more about toe
- sucking, or "post" questions to clarify any doubts
you have, maybe if you're a toe-sucking expert, you could even
guide others who need help. This was one end of the spectrum.
On a more useful note, if your modem is giving you trouble that
your hardware guy could not sort out, you could go to a newsgroup
dedicated to modems and share your problem. In all probability,
in a day or two, you'll find messages on that newsgroup from others
who had the same problem, telling you how to solve it ! Newsgroups
are available through VSNL, though it is not publicised. So log
on and benefit.
Just a small handy hint - you may want to revise the fundaes
that you've learnt from these columns. There's a surprise in store
in the next column !