Hello, I will be your host today on your wonderful journey through the IRC realms.

Today, we will be using my prefered IRC client, Miranda-IM.

So, let us begin, by downloading the latest version of miranda from miranda-im.org.

Once you've done that, install it, unchecking any protocols you don't use, or don't wish to use with miranda.

OK, so now it's installed, run it, and go into options - IRC.

About in the middle, you'll have something called 'default network', click enable, and the the + sign.

Call the network slashnet, server name is slashnet.org, and put the internet address as irc.slashnet.org

Now, open up your main menu, go to IRC, select connect to server, and chose slashnet. Go to join a channel, and type '64digits' (Without the quotes) and badabing, badaboom, you're in!

Now for the rules of IRC:

1)Idle

2)Idle

3)Idling is where you are on a channel in the background, but aren't saying anything. This is so conversations can actually start up.

Miranda makes this easy by letting you actually close the window, and having the system tray icon change if somebody speaks :D

If you decide to use Miranda for more than just IRC, you'll need some addons. I recommend modern contacts list, to give your contacts a bit more oomph, as well as being fully skinnable to boot.

tabSRMM adds tabs to your message windows, as well as a boatload of awesome, and skinning abilities. History++ is my log of choice, easily accessible, and renders just like a conversation.

MyDetails is a nice way to change your status, message, name (Something which MSN was lacking <_<) and avatar very simply, and very similarly to MSN.

err, popup plus for all your popupy goodness, interfaces with tabSRMM for proper popuping.

SmileyAdd gives smilies.

Tipper gives little tooltips, which are awesome.

Nudge adds nudging.

All those addons are in the addons.miranda-IM.org repository, but as their search functions are useless, I recommend googleing 'Miranda IM -name of addon-'

Now you're all set to use the IRC simply and with style… lets all have a moment of silence for marbles, marbs' doggie.