Pianotech Live Chat

[John Musselwhite]

Hi Folks.

Here, once again (albeit rather late!), is a reminder about the regular
Tuesday night meeting in the Pianotech IRC Chat room.

As most of you are aware, piano technicians have our own live chat channel
on the Undernet called "#pianotech". The Undernet is part of "Inter Relay
Chat" (IRC) and is available to most people with internet access these days.
All you need to join us is an IRC chat "client" such as mIRC or Netscape
Chat and a ppp (graphical) internet connection. Unfortunately, users of
Compuserve (and possibly AOL) may not be able to access the channel due to
their connection type.

We have set up Tuesday evenings from about 21:00 EDT to midnight as a time
for us to meet. All are welcome at any time as you never know who may show
up on any day or any time.

To join us, load up your chat client (I recommend mIRC which is "freeware"
and readily available) and if you're running it for the first time, answer
the questions it asks. Choose a nickname (it will tell you if the "nick" is
already in use once you connect and then let you change it), and connect to
a server such as "us.undernet.org" or "ca.undernet.org". When it connects,
use your software to "Join" the channel called #pianotech  (all IRC channels
have a pound sign # in front of the name).  Most software comes with a list
of servers installed already and you can choose any Undernet server to
connect with #pianotech.

So far, we've had participants from England, South Africa, Australia,
Portugal and of course, Canada and the United States. Some have been
interested piano players but others have been technicians as well. It's been
fascinating hearing about unusual piano problems and situations in far-away
places!

If you do join us, one of the "nicks" that you will see there is "@X". For
those unfamiliar with it, X is not a participant, but a program (called a
"bot") which keeps the basic information about #pianotech and a number of
other registered channels. "X" will not respond if you attempt to converse
with it, so just ignore it and wait a while for someone else to show up.

If anyone has any questions, just EMail me unless you feel the group might
be interested. Live chat is a great way to exchange ideas or just spend some
time in friendly conversation with like-minded people.

We're hoping to see some of you there on Tuesday evening  in  #pianotech !

			John

John Musselwhite, RPT
Calgary, Alberta Canada
musselj@cadvision.com