Prepare to chat!

[Jeff]

We have licensed DigiChat for use here by the CareCure Community. Only registered members will be able to use the chatroom. You will automatically enter the chat room with your CareCure display name as your DigiChat nickname. This is the same as the username you log in with unless you specifically made it different in your profile. No one will be able to impersonate you unless they log in as you to the CareCure Forums. You can not impersonate anyone either, neither can you sign in with a different name. This is the easiest and best way to handle logging in to chat. You will have a DigiChat profile that can easily be seen by others while chatting. Your CareCure profile information will not display in your DigiChat profile. Feel free to enter as little or as much as you want into your DigiChat profile.

We will allow a maximum of twenty-five users in the chatroom at any one time. If this is ever not sufficient we can consider increasing that number.

I expect to have the room up and running early next week.

In the future we could have guest/celebrity chats scheduled. We could also decide to have separate rooms for different purposes. If you have any thoughts in this regard please post here.

Here is some information about system requirements to be able to use the new chat room:

What is a Java Virtual Machine?
A Java Virtual Machine (JVM or VM) is the software that allows you to run Java applets or applications, such as DigiChat, on your machine. Most newer browsers have a JVM built in to run applets, such as the DigiChat client. In order to run Java applications, such as the DigiChat Server, Commander, or ChatMaster, you may need to install a Java Virtual Machine yourself. See Question #3 for more information on Java Virtual Machines for various platforms.


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Does Windows XP support Java?
Some versions of Windows XP do not come with a Java VM. You will need to download the latest one from Sun (preferably 1.4.0), or get the Windows update and download the latest critical updates.

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Which web browser(s) do you recommend for running the DigiChat Client applet?
For the best speed and compatibility with the Client applet, we recommend Netscape 6.2 or Internet Explorer 6.0 for Windows, and Internet Explorer 4.5 or later for Macintosh with MRJ 2.1 or later. You may use Netscape 4.0 for Macintosh, though these browsers exhibit poor Java performance.

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Does DigiChat run under America Online?
Yes. However, it may be necessary to access DigiChat from an external browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator/Communicator, rather than the built in AOL web browser. This is due to apparent bugs in AOL 4.0 and earlier which cause some Java applets, such as DigiChat, to redraw improperly. This bug appears to affect Windows 95/NT and Macintosh, though Windows 98 appears to be unaffected. Opening a newer browser while running AOL should fix this problem.


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Members won't need to run DigiChat Server, Commander, or ChatMaster so the JVM built into the browser will be sufficient. If you're using a browser that doesn't support Java, however, you'll need to download the JVM from Sun. If anyone needs it you can download it for free here:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/download.html

Version 1.4 is their latest stable release.

~See you at the SCIWire-used-to-be-paralyzed Reunion http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/wavey.gif ~

[This message was edited by Jeff on Aug 22, 2002 at 02:40 PM.]

[Emi2]

Great...another thing to keep me on my computer...lol. Seriously, this is BIG news

[Polett]

Who's going to moderate it?


...and the soul afraid of dyin'... That never learns to live...

[Jeff]

Good question.

The chat room will be here soon due to user demand. It will most likely be available 24x7. We have no plans, as of yet, to moderate it. That would be too big of a job.

I think the non-lasting nature of words in a chat room demands less moderation than maybe a web forum where posts are there to view and search on indefinitely. We can display a disclaimer for anyone entering the room that it is indeed unmoderated.

What we could moderate are guest/celebrity chats. Imagine having leading scientists and knowledgeable others there in our chat room to answer questions? That would be quite a privilege. Christopher Reeve has done several online chats on Yahoo. We could invite him to come chat with us. I, for one, would be there.

Does that answer your question? Feel free to reply with any concerns...

~See you at the SCIWire-used-to-be-paralyzed Reunion http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/wavey.gif ~

[Polett]

The second part... the one about having guests, I think it's great!!!
Way to go... If u need any help... let me know


...and the soul afraid of dyin'... That never learns to live...

[Jeff]

Well, the ease of integrating the chat room with Infopop was not what I was told. It's not surprising the details I wasn't told. Normally, you always find out the truth after you buy something.

So...I built a user database by downloading usernames/display names from Infopop and assigning random six-digit numbers as passwords. I've also developed login and profile maintenance windows. You'll be able to change your password to anything you like. It's working pretty well and should be finished before I leave for a long Memorial Day weekend.

Distributing the passwords will be a challenge. However, anyone who wants their password can email me otownjeff@hotmail.com.

Look here shortly for directions to the link for our new chat site.

~See you at the SCIWire-used-to-be-paralyzed Reunion http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/wavey.gif ~

[duramater]

What I understood: BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.....can you just tell me where to click?

And uh, Emi, you have studying....if I get to have any say in the chat room I will be booting you out to your books!!!

Mary

[Jeff]

We decided the easiest way was to assign EVERYONE the password "cure." Just the four characters c-u-r-e, no punctuation. This means everyone should log in ASAP and change their password, even if they don't plan on chatting for a while.

You can update your chat profile. By this time tommorrow [9/4/02] the profile will be available to others while you are chatting.

You can enter the chat room here (http://carecure.rutgers.edu/spinewire/chat/chat.php) or from the main forum page.

~See you at the SCIWire-used-to-be-paralyzed Reunion http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/wavey.gif ~

[Jeff]

Your username to log in to chat is your CareCure username. Your "nickname" in the chat applet, however, will be your CareCure display name. These could be different depending on how you set up your CareCure profile. For instance, I could possibly log in as "jweeks" but have "jeff" appear as my DigiChat nickname.

See you in the chat room!

~See you at the SCIWire-used-to-be-paralyzed Reunion http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/wavey.gif ~

[Jeff]

Our newest members are not in the system, yet. I'll be downloading our newest members periodically and updating our database. If your username or password doesn't work or exist yet I can fix it for you.

otownjeff@hotmail.com

~See you at the SCIWire-used-to-be-paralyzed Reunion http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/wavey.gif ~

[alan]

Seems to work okay with Mozilla for OS/2.

[Jeff]

That's great, Alan.

BTW, all the profile values entered into our chat database are now properly being passed to the chat applet. These values should be saved each time you happen to make changes before logging in. Don't bother updating your profile from within the chat applet as those values will only last until you logout from chat.

~See you at the SCIWire-used-to-be-paralyzed Reunion http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/wavey.gif ~