[vlmagee]

Thank you Cathy A! I have been running Pidgin for several months now because I had business contacts who didn't have any of the chat programs I had been running regularly. I had accounts in half a dozen places, but regularly ran only AIM, and Yahoo only rarely. I installed Pidgin so I could communicate with people on Gmail and MSN (and ICQ which I hadn't had installed in years, but where I still have a userid).

Anyhow, having read your message last night, I took a quick look and didn't see how to set it up for the chatroom (I hadn't even noticed it supported IRC). Now, fresh from a good night's sleep (well, some sleep anyway), I gave it a try and after some fumbling found the "Join a chat" selection, which I had never seen before. Works like a charm! Peter, if you want to test it, I'll be in there.

PS: For those who run AIM, this is far better. AIM is instrusive (I'm sure you have noticed), and has ads. Pidgin is clean and quiet. I am not a fan of 3rd party software and install almost none of it (John can tell you I refused to install mIRC - because of its security issues). I installed Pidgin only after my son and husband did - both of whom are as reluctant as I to install stuff, and only continue to use it if it is well behaved and doesn't expose one to security issues. I strongly urge all of you to install it and dispense with AIM, mIRC and the rest.