In order to connect to our IRC channel, you have two options:

• Connect using a web-based client.
• Connect using an installed IRC client.

You need to know the server's irc.blitzed.org and the channel, a bit like a radio frequency that you're tuned into, is #dorset. Yes, the hash at the start is part of the name. In addition, you'll need a nick, or nickname, which others will know you by. Choose what you like, but if it's too common, e.g. “john”, then you may find you have to pick another. That's one reason why you'll see some weird and wonderful nicks adopted by others. You can change your nick to another free one at any time, so don't think this is a choice for life.

mibbit.com is a very nice IRC web client and works well in Firefox with Javascript enabled. (It also handles twitter.com too, amongst other things.) You can connect to #dorset with this pre-made URL; just enter your chosen nick, see above.

It may be that this URL, irc://irc.blitzed.org:6667/dorset, will cause your IRC program to join the #dorset channel. If not, see if you've an IRC client installed. A few popular IRC clients are XChat, package xchat in Ubuntu, and ksirc (KDE).

Any bits of text longer than a line or two should be put up on our pastebin. You submit your pasted text there and then paste the resulting URL into #dorset. Attempting to paste lots of text onto the #dorset channel is considered bad form.

Whilst connected to the Blitzed IRC network, there are various other channels which may be of interest:

• #linux - The home of Linux in the UK.
• #hants - Hampshire LUG (the neighbours).
• #debian - Debian Linux related questions.
• #gentoo - Gentoo Linux related questions.
• #ubuntu - Ubuntu Linux related questions.
• #blitzed - Blitzed IRC help.