<<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