Technical Support Frequently Asked Questions

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FAQ's about Homer: IRC for Mac

What is Homer ?
Setting up Homer
Why three names ?
Windows in Homer
Listing channels
Participating in channels
Safety and rules
For more information

Q. What is Homer ?

A. Homer is an IRC program for the Macintosh.

Q. Setting up Homer ?

A. Each time you open Homer, you see a dialog box with a "Click on me to change the connection settings" button.

The first time you open Homer, you need to change the server information.

  1. Click on the Click me to change the connection settings button.
  2. The server information dialog box opens.

    a) For "Server Address" type "irc.texas.net".
    b) For "User ID" type up to eight characters.

    Whatever you type here appears as your address ID: "jdoe@accesscom.com". It does not have to be your real name or your user name.

    For example, I could type "docs" to appear as "docs@accesscom.com", or I could type "tchwrtr" and appear as "tchwrtr@accesscom.com". It would not matter that the "techwrtr@accesscom.com" is not my actual email address.

    c) For "User Name" you can type your user name or any other name. Whatever you type here appears in parentheses after your address ID.
    d) For "Nickname" type a nickname of up to eight characters. This is how you are identified in channels.
    e) For "Server Port" type "6667".

  3. Click OK.

Homer opens. From now on, Homer will connect to "irc.texas.net" automatically.

Q. Why three names ?

A. You might be a little confused by having three places to type your name, none of which require a real name or even a real user name.

Your the nickname is what appears with your comments in channels. The other two names appear as your "user ID" and as your "real name" when someone asks the IRC server for more information about you.

You do not have to give real information on any of these. This is one thing people like about IRC - the opportunity to interact anonymously.

Note: This does not mean the people running the IRC server cannot find out who you are if you do something against the rules, like using a bot.

Q. Windows in Homer ?

A. Homer has three main windows, and opens another window for each channel you join.

The Console window displays information about the server and responses to commands. For example, if you use the "list" command, the results appear here.

Below the Console window is the Text Input window. This is where you type commands to the server or comments to a channel.

The window with "NICK" and your nickname in the lower left corner is the Control Panel. When you join a channel, this window shows who is in the channel.

Q. Listing channels ?

A. Before you join a channel, you may want to look at a partial list of what is available. I suggest only looking at part of the list because the full list contains thousands of channels.

If you already know what channel you want, skip to the next section.

Note: Whenever you type a command, you must type the "/" shown at the beginning.

To list all channels type "/list" and press return.

Note: Listing all channels takes a LONG time. I suggest you NOT do this.

To list all channels with a minimum of "x" users, type "/list -min x" and press return.

To list all channels with a maximum of "y" users, type "/list -max y" and press return.

To list all channels with at least "x" but no more than "y" users, type "/list -min x -max y" and press return.

For example, to see all channels with 5-8 users, type "/list -min 5 -max 8" and press return.

Q. Participating in channels ?

A. You may join any channel that is not marked "private."

To join a channel:

  1. Choose New Channel from the File menu.
  2. Type the channel name in the "Channel to join" field.
  3. Click on the Join button.

A channel window opens. You can join up to ten channels at one time, though most people cannot keep track of that many at once.

When you want to leave a channel, close the channel window.

To talk in a channel, type in the Text Input window and press return. Everyone's text appears with their name beside it, except yours. Your text appears to you with just a ">" sign next to it.

Channels often contain many overlapping conversations, and you may want to watch for a while until you understand how this works.

To find out more information about someone:

  1. Select their name in the control panel.
  2. Click on the "walking person" button in the lower part of the control panel.
  3. Information about the person appears in the console window.

Q. Safety and rules ?

A. IRC can be a security problem for you and for our system. If someone asks you to run a script, do not do it. There are scripts that give access to your account to anyone who wants it, if you run the script. If someone tells you to type a command, don't do it unless you are sure you know what it does.

This is for your protection and ours. Remember, you are responsible for letting people have access to your account.

Also, we do not let people run bots from Access. "bots" - short for "robots" - are programs that run pre-programmed instructions. Bots are sometimes programmed to act like people. More often, they are programmed to do things like greet people or answer questions.

Bots can be programmed to do all kinds of useful things, but they can also do nasty things. Because of this, all bots are banned on Access. This means you may not run bots using a Access account - not on our server, not on any other server. If we find a bot we will kill it; if you persist in running bots we will turn off your account. (For a longer explanation of why we have banned bots, see the "bots" help file.)

Q. For more information ?

A. For online help, type these commands in the text input window, then press return.

/helpgives a list of help topics
/help [topic]gives information on the topic

Help is available under the apple menu and in the "read me" file you downloaded with Homer.

For general help with IRC, join channel "#irchelp". You may also be able to get help in "#macintosh" since people there are likely to be using Homer.