it won’t have escaped anyone’s notice that this blog went a bit quiet for a while. I’ve not been well, partly (teeth troubles), but also because i’ve been doing some of my other love: the garden.
An incident today (which i won’t go into here) led Michiel to set up irssi as a chat client for me. I said i would give it a go, rather than using Konversation. I’ve been feeling more confident about using irssi, since i started hanging out in ‘chucks and other geek chatrooms because i’ve been able to look over at his computer, see what he’s doing with his screen and observe that its not such a mysterious thing after all.
(if i have one criticism of Michiel as a teacher, its that he’s so good, its almost daunting to try to learn from him… kinda like.. “OMG i’m NEVER gonna be able to do that!!”. he’s fast on the keyboard which makes it hard to follow, but at the same time good in a way that makes it look very easy, while looking hard. if that makes any sense.)
However, he sent me off to choose a theme for irssi and it was in chatting to my best friend, sez, who isn’t a geek (although she has used linux, to her credit) about what was happening that i realised she’d never seen irssi as a chat client, so i promised to take a screenshot of it for her. Then i remembered this blog and.. well. an entry is well overdue (plus something else… more on that later).
So without any further ado.. i’d like to present.. my irssi:
Do i like it? so far. I’ve only got one complaint. Konversation, when your name is said in a channel, or someone pm’s you, briefly flashes the content of the message on the screen over whatever you’re looking at (i.e. firefox), and then flashes the lil konversation icon between blue and red in the bottom right hand corner. Irssi doesn’t do that. (Michiel would say that’s because Irssi is meant as a proper chat client, because its IRC and not meant to be insta-response… i’m sure he can tell you better than i can but.. you know.. i like to know when people are talking about me!!!) I don’t like using it on Michiel’s keyboard. With Irssi you move between the various channels by holding down the ALT key and each channel has a number. That’s great, when you know where the number keys are.. although i’m a speed typist i don’t know where the number keys are, necessarily, and moving around Irssi on Das Keyboard is .. a pain in the backside.
Apart from that, i like it. it feels like a proper geek’s IRC. i feel like a proper grown up geek using it. I could get used to it, i guess.. if i do i guess part of my transition has begun. I remember when Michiel first yanked us away from Windozs to Linux, bewailing the loss of my beloved mIRC… i tried out a few chat clients. Michiel suggested irssi. Wasn’t about to have that, i wanted Point n Click!. i wanted ease and simplicity! ahem. yes, i know better now.. i finally settled on konversation and now.. 3-4 years later.. i’m using the irssi i was so afraid of.
better late than never, i guess..
