<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Dear Fellow Listmembers,

Back on Feb.10`98. Beth Streeter posted that she had opened a celiac chat
channel on dal.net for IRC (internet relay chat), which is the original
internet way to have real time chat. For years I had thought this type of
chat would be difficult with a bunch of "commands" to learn. Beth had
also provided the url for obtaining mIRC, a program that makes IRC very
simple. mIRC can be obtained at:
http:// www.mirc.co.uk

I was intrigued and decided to give this thing a try, inwardly convinced
it would take me forever to learn, so I went to the mIRC site and grabbed
the program, which is shareware. It was extremely easy to set up, all I
had to do was accept the default locations, and only one time did I have
to add the channel name which is #celiac, after clicking the add button
it is on the list. The whole set-up was easy and once you are there if
you can type you can chat. I find the interface actually cleaner and
easier to use than web based chat, simply type what you want and hit
enter.

So far I know that I am there almost every afternoon as is Beth and at
least one other is coming on a regular basis. We have had some good
conversation and some good sharing of ideas.

My reason for posting this is that I know alit of people in my personal
life that say they can't do IRC because they have read or heard it was
difficult (until the 10th I was one) and I was afraid to try it--now I am
glad I did. The mIRC program is small, fully installed it takes 1.77MB on
my drive. The possibilities of this chat are endless. The channel (room)
can be open all the time so that if one was having a crisis, celiac or
otherwise, there would be friends to talk to, there could be scheduled
times for those whose time or computer availability is limited and there
is the opportunity to share with  people around the world not just a
specific geographic location. People on this list are wonderful and I
know that I would enjoy the opportunity to "talk" with some of you in
"real time"!

Hope to see you there, the coffee is always hot and the donuts are fresh
and GF :-)

Peace
Linda GF in Maine