Greetings. So you have downloaded Mirc, installed it, got yourself on here and are now wondering what to do next? Let's get your Mirc program set up properly first. Step one: Go to the icon second from the left on your Mirc toolbar. The icon is called Options in Mirc 5.7, General Options in older versions. (hopefully you have Mirc 5.7) Step two: click on the Options icon and you go to the column on the left. There you will see a list of items, some of which have a + beside them. If you click on the +, it expands the lists under the headings. We'll start at the top of the column and work our way down. Step three: Click on Connect. You will now see, to the right, a series of boxes titled IRC Server, Full name, etc. Click on Add. Now you have another series of boxes in front of you which you need to fill in. In the top one, type Mellorien:Carina. In the next one type the following numbers: 194.205.101.147 In the third box, it should already read 6667. If not, put the number 6667 in there. And in the last box, type Mellorien. Then click Add. Now you will be back to the first set of boxes again. Go to the one called Full Name and type in a name. Note: it does not have to be your real name and it can be only one word, example: Raven. In the next box you need to type in something that looks like a proper email address. Example: me@whatnow.com Again, it does not have to be your real email address. The third and fourth boxes ask you to choose two nicknames that you want to use. Note: on a lot of IRC Networks, people register their nicknames so nobody else can use them. If you choose a nickname that has been registered by someone, when you log on to Mellorien, you will get a notice saying that this nickname belongs to someone else. If that happens to you, simply type /nick newnick (newnick being a different nickname that you choose), then hit Enter. Once you have filled in all those boxes, go back to the column on the left and click on Options. Step four: I'll get you to enter the same options that I have and when you become more familiar with Mirc, you can change them as you wish. Looking to the right, you'll see some check boxes. Tick the following ones: the top two, miss out the third one, tick the fourth one. Also, in the box called Retry, change the number to 999. The box called Delay should already read 60. Leave the last box unticked. Step five: Click on Local Info in the left column. Leave the top two lines blank because these will be filled in automatically when you connect to an IRC Network. In the section called On connect, always get tick Local Host (If you are a client machine on a local network, you may need to select IP Address - it will depend on how your LAN is set up). In the section called Lookup Method, tick Server. Back to the left column again. Step six: Click on Ident. In this section, tick the following: Enable Ident Server and Enable only when connecting. Leave everything else there alone. Back to the left. Step seven: Click on the word IRC. Here you will see quite a few check boxes. Tick the following on the left: top two, miss the next one, tick the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth and twelveth. On the right side, tick the following from the top: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 & 8. Back to the left column. Step eight: Click on Perform. Now in this section is where you can type in commands to automatically execute when you have joined an IRC network. For instance, if you register your nickname on Mellorien, you can have a command in this section to automatically identify you to Nickserv. However, for the time being, just type in the following: /join #Sanctuary Also tick the little box that says On connect, perform these commands. Back to the left column again. Yes I know, it seems complicated and time consuming, doesn't it? But most of these will only need to be done the one time. Step nine: miss out the item called Highlight and click on Messages. Tick the box called Timestamp events, format. Now, down towards the bottom of this section you will see a box called Quit message. In this box you can type a message that wil automatically show to people when you log off the IRC network. Example: Beware the low flying Raven! Leave all other parts of this section as they are now. Back to the lfet again. Step ten: Miss out the next two items and click on Logging. Where it say Automatically log, set it to Both in the drop down menu. What this does is makes a log of everything that happens and is said both in the channel you are in and also in any private chats. That way, you can go back and read if you want to. (It pays to clear out your logs occasionally from your mirc\logs folder, otherwise they can build up and eventually use a lot of space). In this section also tick boxes 1, 2, 3 & 5. Also Date filenames and select how you want them dated from the dropdown menu. Back to the left again. Step eleven: click on Flood and tick Enable flood protection. Leave evrything else as it is. Back to the left. Step twelve: Sounds - Under Sounds. click on Requests and *un*tick the box called Send !nick file as private message. This is important for most mp3 file servers will only accept requests made in the actual channel. The other parts of this section don't matter too much as far as mp3's are concerned so you can leave them as they are. Step thirteen: click on DCC. (Yes, we have skipped a few itmes that aren't important at this time). Now here is where you have a choice to make. Where it says On Send Request there are three options. Normally, the safest option to choose here is Show Get Dialog because that way you have control over what you are being sent in the way of files. (viruses are also spread through IRC as well as other places). However, when downloading mp3's, you may find yourself in a queue where you have to wait for sometime before getting the mp3(s) you want. In this circumstance you may want to choose the Auto get file and Minimize options so your Mirc program will automatically accept the file transfer even if you are not at the computer. You have to make the choice as to which option to choose. In the If Auto get and File Exists, choose the Resume option. This way, if a file you have been downloading stops transferring for some reason, when you request it again, it should resume from where it left off rather than starting all over again. In the On Chat Request, I would choose Show Chat Dialog. DCC Chat is private chat and by choosing the option I mentioned, you have control over who you accept private chats from. Back to the left again. Step fourteen: click on Options under DCC. The only thing I would change here is down at the bottom where it says Max. remotely requested DCC Sends. The default is 20 but this only works if you have Cable Modem. Any connection slower than Cable and I would set this to no more than 3. Back to the left and click on folders. Step fifteen: In the Folders section is where you can tell Mirc where to download certain types of files to. For the time being, I would leave it set as it already is: default. Now the next line down is where you can set up some protection against receiving certain types of undesirable files if you chose the Auto Get option mentioned before. Make sure that Ignore file types is ticked and add the following file extensions to what is already there: ,*.vbs,*.unk (exactly as I have typed it here) All files with these extensions *can* contain viruses. Back to the left again. Step sixteen: pass over fserve and server and click on Display. Here is where you can choose how you want certain things to show. To start with, until you are more used to Mirc, I would suggest leaving everything in here as it is. However, by all means, experiment if you wish. It won't affect the operation of Mirc. Step seventeen: Go straight down to the item marked General and click on Lock. Look down near the bottom of this section and see where it says Disable Commands. If it isn't already ticked, tick the box that says /run. NOW you can click the OK button and Mirc is now pretty much set up :) All that remains to do is connect to Mellorien . Next time, you can just bring up Mirc and it should auto-connect you (providing, of course, that you are connected to the Internet). Enjoy! Copyrighted by Highlander 1999