Tag Archives: IRC

Looking for a Christian chat server?

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I’ve been using IRC since the late 90’s. Starting with ChristianCHAT.com (when they were still using IRC, and still based on WebNet), I moved to CCNet, then to ChristianWorld, then back again, and then it became a big blur as I discovered a large number of Christian IRC Chat servers. But that was over 10 years ago – the world of Christian IRC has changed several times since then, and the number of Christian Chat servers is in decline.

Especially with Christian-Chat.net closing their IRC server in the last month or so, the users have spread or just stopped chatting. This is my attempt to review as many of the Christian IRC servers I can find, as fairly as I can, although it is also entirely based on my experience as a more-experienced-than-average user. I also try to list the website, the IRC address, and the average number of users at peak. Peak time is usually considered to be weekends or evenings, ranging from about 7pm til 12am ET, and chatters may or may not be active outside of these times – this is just typically when things tend to become active. Lastly, if I’ve missed any – please let me know so I can check them out and add them to the list. I’d appreciate it, and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind the free advertising.

Let’s start with the one I am most biased towards, and then move on with the rest.

UCCN – the United Christian Chat Network. (irc.unitedchristianchat.net, irc.godsirc.com, irc.christian-irc.com, irc.i-al.net)

UCCN is the largest network in terms of servers and services. Using 3 client servers (4 if you count the IPv6 server), UCCN is almost entirely redundant, allowing for any one server to fail and still serve the users. The staff are nice, and the policy is for as much self-government by channels/rooms as possible. Average of around 25-30 real users at peak.

JesusFreak-IRC – the Jesus Freak IRC Network. (irc.jesusfreak-irc.com)

JFIRC is the server that seemed to pick up most of the CCNet users, and is run by former CCNet staff of various capacities. Undying (Jeremy) is the official owner, with Ducky hosting the network on his home server. At the time of writing, the server is unavailable due to hardware failure. JFIRC are a lot more like the old CCNet, using a closed channel registration model, and a much tighter level of control from the server staff. Averaged around 20-30 real users at peak.

RGC-Chat – the RGC Ministries server. (irc.rgc-chat.net)

I haven’t spent a lot of time at RGC’s server, although they seem like a nice enough group of people. Channel registration is also closed, requiring a request to be made for opening a new room. Average seems to be around 20 real users at peak.

aBlazeNet – the aBlaze Network. (irc.ablazenet.org, irc.ablazenet.net, irc.ablazenet.com)

I used to work as an IRC Administrator for aBlazeNet, back around 2003 or so. Not a whole lot has changed – still an open registration model, meaning anyone can register a new channel, and the staff are rather easygoing and don’t interfere with channels unless they need to. Average seems to be around 20-25 real users at peak.

SalvationsCorner – Salvations Corner (irc.salvationscorner.net)

Once a hopping place, Salvations Corner is now one of the quietest and most desolate IRC servers I have seen in recent history. With 2 users, not much goes on. I’m sure they’d appreciate some new people! Average maybe 5 real users at peak.

CalvarysLove – Calvary’s Love (irc.calvaryslove.ca)

A while back, Colin (SeekHim) was an active member of the staff at UCCN. One day, some disagreements happened that apparently were unresolvable except by him leaving, and he elected to start his own IRC server. I took a brief look today, and he seems to be averaging the same number as he did those years back. Average maybe 5 real users at peak.

JROI – Jesus Rocks on IRC (irc.jesusrocksonirc.net)

To be honest, this one I can’t give an unbiased review towards, because I have been a ban-on-sight user for as long as I can remember. This means I can’t be on the server for more than about 5 minutes before I am shunned (meaning I can’t do anything – noone will see what I say, I can’t join channels, etc), I am force-parted (meaning a staff member forces me to part any channels I’m in, so that it appears I voluntarily left), and then banned from the server. As far as the users see, I join, I say hi, I part, and don’t come back.

The funny part is, I’m not entirely sure why. I endeavored to find out once, and was told (via a third party) about some event where I tried to steal the server. I vaguely recall the event in question, although my recollection appears to be completely different to GadFires (the owner of JROI). I would be happy to discuss this with him, except he refused to respond to any of the attempts I made to talk to him about it.This would also surprise me, except that his reputation precedes him as being a kick/kill/ban first, ignore questions later kind of admin.

As I recall, from the few times I was able to evade bans long enough to actually chat, the users are all rather nice. The staff aren’t always technically literate, but they are very friendly and somewhat happy to chat. They are a younger group, most of them are teenagers, so this should be taken into consideration also. According to SearchIRC’s listing of JROI, they have around 50-60 users. Taking into account services, this has a reasonable average of around 40-50 real users at peak.

Why Are We So Quick?

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Matthew 7

Judging Others

1“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.3“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Why are we so quick to tell people how to fix their problems without being fully aware of, or even considering, their circumstances?

A number of times recently I’ve noticed either myself or others commenting about lack of money, and someone else will be very quick to respond (because it is online) along the lines of “Well, you have an internet connection, surely that is one way you could save money!”

Three situations spring to mind where while money may be tight, cutting the internet would not be of any benefit. The first is of a work-at-home person who uses their home phone and internet connection for work. This is a great idea in my opinion, it saves gas, and if you can motivate yourself to get up in the morning (or whenever you need to work) to do your job at home with no-one watching over your shoulder or cubicle wall ensuring you’re on task, go for it.

The other is my current situation. The internet bill is not addressed to me, nor do I pay it. I use the internet connection in this house with permission (IE: I’m not stealing the neighbors), but this house is also not mine.

The third also applies to me, but more directly to others. A large number of employers are only accessible online. That is, you need an internet connection and an email address to communicate with them in order to have much of a chance at getting a job to fix your impending financial woes.

So, dear people of earth, just because someone has a problem, doesn’t mean you should fix it without asking them some further questions. Maybe your hastily and rudely given practical solution isn’t so practical after all.

Looking for People?

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With the advent of www.awesomechristians.net, I have been going through old quotes to add to kick-start the site and have been coming across old names that I think of occasionally and wouldn’t mind talking to again.

Here is a list, and if you are one of these, leave me a comment or drop by www.unitedchristianchat.net and let me know who you are 😉

Generically (because I know I’ll miss some on the specifics list):

If you used PHMinistries.net, Christian-IRC.com, Christian-IRC.net, C-Chat.com, Teens4Jesus.org PowerZone-IRC, 24-7Christians or any affiliated site or network between 2000 and 2006, I’d like to know who you were (and if we knew each other), and what you’re up to now.

Specifically (in no particular order):

  • tqo
  • GenesisX/Ken
  • Outsiders/Chris
  • OutCast/Megathunder/Jesse
  • Sentinal/David
  • LordzAngel/Katie
  • Cassie
  • Buddy
  • Nodren
  • rdolph/Rachel
  • kac4him
  • Matt (The Windows-loving-linux-hating guy ;-))
  • Underdog
  • Dan
  • Angel4Dios
  • hawkeyeaz1
  • Jared
  • fac3less
  • gimp80995
  • SalvadorChicka
  • Brad
  • Dani
  • counselor/Albert

Possibly to be added to/ammended 😉

Silence is Golden

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At least, that’s what they tell me. I haven’t posted for a while, and I don’t really have a whole lot to say.

I’ve been whining recently about trying to find work, I’m still looking for a full-time IT job while I continue to apply for anything I see in a two-hour radius from where I live.

I applied recently for an IT position via fax, because the organization’s mail server wasn’t accepting emails. This amused me. I also forwarded messages I’d printed with the error messages so they could look into fixing it.

Yesterday and today I worked high ropes, yesterday with a church retreat from in/near DC, and today with a bunch of kids from DC’s Public Schools. A few funny things were said, but the one that stood out was a girl yesterday who said the 3 places she wanted to visit before she died were Argentina, Australia and Alabama. On querying her wish to visit Alabama, she explained her desire to visit “The South” and drink “Real” sweet tea. I tried (in vain) to suggest she could get real sweet tea just by visiting this far south in Virginia, but she wouldn’t have any of it. The only place, in her mind, where she could get such a delicacy was if she went to a “Real” southern state like Alabama.

I had a great time, today I got to try out the new gloves I got for doing ropes work with (and they were amazing!), and had a good laugh or two with some really cool people.

The other day I set up a new website on a domain that has been empty for a few weeks, www.awesomechristians.net is now a quote board for amusing or moving quotes from Christian chat rooms all over. Not necessarily UCCN, or even IRC. They can be from Yahoo! or anywhere else for all it matters!

Tonight is a thanksgiving dinner at church, and tomorrow morning Kelly and I leave to house-sit for two weeks! I’m sure many photos will abound.

I Want…

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…to change the image of cheap internet hosting. I can’t see it happening. What I would love to do would be to run a small business supplying cheap webhosting for websites and IRC and Shoutcast and Teamspeak and VPSs and Dedicated servers and so on and so forth, meanwhile providing quality 24 hour phone and email support for a low monthly fee. I’d like to do that. I think that is what the internet would like. But it isn’t going to happen any time soon. Why? Because I don’t have the upfront money to pay for the first server, which itself would probably only be able to supply websites for example. And even if I did, I would probably not be able to afford long-term payments if only one or two people bought accounts – not much motivation to have people calling me at 3 in the morning because their website is running slow.

The sad truth is that small internet businesses are not very profitable. In order to make any money, you need a minimum amount of resources and get a large number of customers using them in order to pay for a) the resources being used already, and b) more resources.

I was crunching numbers a few months ago with the prospect of starting a VPS company, but in order to get going, I was needing around $240 a month for the server just to get it up and running, and then I needed 24 people paying $10 a month before it would break even. With that kind of package, I’d only have another 6 packages available on that server before I’d need a second one, and then I’m back to finding $180 a month until that one reaches a break-even point. Once I had 6 servers running, there would be enough profit from 6 full servers to fund a 7th without anything coming out of my own pocket, by which point I would be serving around 180 customers. The seventh server is what would be the turning point in the business. And somewhere in all of this I’d need to have found 180 people that want VPSs with the crappy support that I’d be able to provide on my own, meaning I’d probably need to pay for advertising of some description, and possibly provide some web-designing services of some kind. Keeping in mind also, that none of those numbers were taking taxes or any other mandatory expenses into consideration, so it would probably be the 8th server that was making money. Around the 10th server (Read: 300 customers) I’d be able to afford to visit a mobile communications store and lease unto myself a cell phone and a wireless data-card to provide support anywhere. I’d also be able to lease a VoIP account for the business and accept incoming phone calls for support. I would have undoubtedly branched out by this point, and be providing other services using similar hardware such as website hosting, but hosting more people per-server at a lower cost per-customer. I’d be reselling dedicated servers, probably looking at the viability of buying my own hardware and co-locating it.

And that is where it gets depressing. Maybe I need to just do it? Maybe I need to save the money and put a real plan together, put the time into it and make it work. Maybe I need to find a business partner who I can trust. Maybe I need to give it up already. I know I need to study the business side of it to find out how much that would cost before going further with the viability of the pure technical numbers. I know I need to study further, and make decisions regarding placing multiple service types on the same servers, such as ShoutCast hosting alongside TeamSpeak hosting – probably not a good plan. The same idea applies to mixing VPS plans on the same hardware, as it isn’t entirely fair to cram whatever will fit on a server on whatever is available at the time, at the same time I can’t afford to run 3 servers with 3 plans until they’re paying for themselves.

So I shall return to my silent pondering of greatness that will likely not come. I will continue to come up with ideas that may never see fruition. And I will proceed to consider possibilities to make money as well as a name for myself in the internet community.

Today is Boring.

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Really. It is. You probably don’t even want to read this, because it is only going to be boring.

I received an email from my potential employer pretty much saying I have a job. I am going in on Wednesday to do paperwork and generally hang out. I *do* need to get documentation from my former “employers” regarding number of hours working with children. If I can’t prove 1000 hours then I’ll be an aide rather than a leader, and the pay rate drops accordingly. But hey, a job is a job.

I also have 2 Saturdays coming up working high and low ropes at Camp Horizons for two larger groups. That’s an extra $70/day too.

The only other “excitement” today involved getting lunch at Subway. I won a free 21oz. FUZE Tea, and a scrabble letter. Other than that I’ve been sitting here watching nothing happen on TV and watching facebook. I guess I could do some programming stuff, there is an outstanding bug in my ticketing system that is to be fixed, and I have an idea for fixing my service detection system reading false positives. I should also work on expanding the system and stuff. Maybe a website? Could be a good moneymaker. Who knows.

See? Boring. If you made it this far, congratulations. Have a nice day.

Disappointment

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This is partly to test WordPress’s new Blog-by-email. We’ll see how it works.

Yesterday I received a phone call from Rackspace, with a variation of that dreaded message. “We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.”

I felt kinda like some of the people on Millionaire must feel when they’ve been going for the million dollars, and got the answer wrong and going home with $25,000.

Let me explain. What I had were two options, I could work at Rackspace for ~$45k/yr doing something I would really enjoy or I could work at a camp doing something I would also enjoy for the summer making ~$150/wk. I had 2 really great interviews at Rackspace, even they said the second one went really well, but apparently not good enough.

I’m trying to keep positive, I’m still applying for 2-3 jobs including one at JMU, and working at camp will still pay all our bills (and let us catch up on the ones we’re having to skip this month) along with Kelly’s summer job. I’ll just have to start applying again as summer comes to a close.

I’m particularly looking for IT work within VA, and I don’t mind commuting up to 2 hours each way in order to take a job worth anywhere from $30k up (So from the DC Metro area down to Blacksburgish, and out to Richmond. I’m in the Harrisonburg/Rockingham County area right now). I intend to relocate if the job is at the outer reaches of that range along with my wife and puppy. I have reliable transport, and while I have no formal computing qualifications I have professional and personal experience with PHP/MySQL, computer hardware testing, computer software installation and general computer troubleshooting and problem solving. I’ve worked on a service desk (Level 1 and 2) for a 5000 user organization supporting Novell Netware and Active Directory (on the same network) as well as Alcatel based PBX systems. I’ve also been administrating Linux servers for several years. I’m happy to take an entry-level position (Helpdesk, Desktop support, etc), though I’d like a company with good promotion paths that will allow me to progress beyond, as I’d like to move into server administration, and possibly network administration also.

So while I continue to look for work, if you or someone/an organization you know is looking for an IT worker, let me know about them, or let them know about me!

Small Business Opportunities

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So I sat in church this morning doing calculations in a notebook. Basically I was conducting a basic viability study towards becoming a VPS/VDS provider. Turns out it could actually work out on a 2/3rds full server. The problem is actually getting a server with the specs required, and I’ve found one from one provider. Would be nice to have expansion options outside of that one ISP.

In short, I need a 64-bit server (Dual or Quad core probably) with 8GB RAM and at least a 750GB hard disk, and 64 IP addresses.

This will host 30 VPS’s with 2 IP’s each, 256MB RAM and 20GB Hard disk space with room for some to upgrade.

I also need it to cost around $200-250/mo (the best deal I’ve found so far is $241/mo).

My other option is to build a server and colocate it. This would put my setup costs through the roof, but would possibly be a cheaper monthly cost. The other downside would be that if parts fail, it’s my responsibility unlike a rented dedicated server.

Meantime I will keep looking and continue working on a business plan, also working on various ways to fund the venture.

For more information, see here.

#News

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A couple of weeks ago I started 3 new channels on 3 different IRC networks. They’re all effectively the same, and are run by 3 versions of the same bot split out into the 3 networks.

But this is all technical crap. Basically if you use ZoeLife4U, aBlazeNet or UnitedChristianChat (GodsIRC/Christian-IRC/AwesomeChristians/LoveOfTheology), you can join #News and watch the news feeds from CNN, Fox, CrossWalk and others fill the channel. You can feel free to discuss current events as they are happening.

Additionally, if you are interested in having a similar channel (news feeds can be adjusted as desired) on another network, let me know and I’ll see what we can arrange.

Quiet Day

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We’re kinda hanging in the family room, Crash, Kelly and I. We’re watching Family Feud on TV, the Porter family are playing the final game. Oop, they just lost, getting 159 points (needed 200 to get $20,000).

I’m also talking to a friend who has a DVD of photos of his son, from newborn through the first year that he is trying to recover. It isn’t going well.

Kelly just moved to the other chair beside Crash, and he started trying to chew the blanket she’s wearing to keep warm. She’s not doing too well, has a sore throat. She really enjoys the look on his face when she pats him on the nose with a rope toy and hums a tune. We’re working especially to train him out of mouthing/biting people, and we’ll also be working in the next few days training him to not jump up on people when he’s excited (or at all, really).

Just took him out to ‘potty’ and he peed, but hasn’t pooped for a while. Now he’s kinda ignoring lunch in favour of laying beside the chair and licking himself. So far he has acquired at least 6 names or variations on names, all of them in the first 3 days. Crash, Chase, Crush, Crash Taylor, Chuck, Trash.. as well as the obvious ones like Pup and Puppy.

I’ve given myself a coding project for the afternoon, after I retrieve the power pack for the macbook. It’ll be a whois and status facility for UCCN, which will begin our web-integration with IRC. The first will be a web form that queries whether a nickname is online, and if so returns normal public information about them (their hidden host name, public channels, etc). The second will be a status image that returns ‘online’ or ‘offline’ depending on whether the user is online or not (duh..). Both will be dependent on the SQL database from Denora, and will probably also utilize the SQL database from Anope for Nickserv aliases/groups. It will detect if someone is online but not using their primary nickname.

I also need to work on the web interface for Supportive, and will be developing an improved version of the java.php @ www.unitedchristianchat.net/java/java.php, both in look and in function.

So, I shall stop blogging nothingness and go get my power pack!