GeekShed IRC Network
Subservient Chris Raises Money for GeekShed and the MDA
Dec 26th
For the past two years, Chris Pirillo has held a fundraiser on New Year’s Eve known as Subservient Chris. Both of those years, all of the money raised went directly to the IRC network to help defray expenses and operating costs. This year, we plan to do things differently.
Cory (Gimpi) Carrier was a member of our IRC network for many, many years. We were all lucky to have called him our friend. Cory struggled with Muscular Dystrophy from the time he was born, and worked tirelessly raising money for the MDA. We sadly lost Cory back on October 1st of this year, due to complications from the H1N1 Flu virus. His loss has left a huge hole in our community, and in our hearts. Therefore, we wanted to find a way to remember and honor him. Chris Pirillo is helping us do just that, because Cory was also a member of his community.
For the fundraiser this year, GeekShed will only be keeping 25% of the donations received. At the end of the night, we will be donating the remaining 75% to the Tuscon, AZ chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, who worked with Cory and his family for so many years. They provided care and support for Cory – and many others – and do a lot of good things for people struggling with this awful disease.
Here’s how the fundraiser works: on New Year’s Eve from 10PM until 1AM Eastern time, Chris will turn himself into the equivalent of the Subservient Chicken. You, the community, can make your donations directly to GeekShed. For a minimum $10.00 donation, you can request something silly for Chris to do live on his stream. As you make the donation, simply put your request for him in the comments section, so that he will know what it is you want him to do.
In the past, Chris has done everything from singing songs like Barbie Girl to putting peanut butter on his face for his puppies to lick off! He’ll do pretty much anything you ask, as long as it’s legal, and not demeaning/disgusting. Please keep in mind that younger people will be watching, and keep your requests appropriate.
Please join us on New Year’s Eve for the fun and laughter. If you are able to make a donation, we would sincerely appreciate it. I know that the people we are working with at the MDA are appreciative, as well as Cory’s family.
Who owns GeekShed IRC?
Dec 26th
GeekShed IRC is owned by Geek Shed Ltd. GeekShed Ltd. is a UK registered company (company #07055433) boarded by Allan Jude and Phil Lavin as directors and Marcus Joyce as secretary. Allan, Phil and Marcus all have equal share holdings.
GeekShed Ltd. exists for administrative purposes and GeekShed IRC is run as much as a democracy as possible. Reasonable caution is taken with access to the network and not all staff hold the same access rights. Access is granted as appropriate for the task each staff member is required to perform.
GeekShed Ltd. is funded solely by donations and uses these for administrative costs and for projects that directly benefit our users.
GeekShed Ltd. exists for administrative purposes and GeekShed IRC is run as much as a democracy as possible. Reasonable caution is taken with access to the network and not all staff hold the same access rights. Access is granted as appropriate for the task each staff member is required to perform.
GeekShed Ltd. is funded solely by donations and uses these for administrative costs and for projects that directly benefit our users.
IRC Clients
Dec 21st
At least once a week, we get asked about IRC clients that people can use. Although GeekShed offers the TFlash flash-based chat client that can be used and embedded on one’s site, unless you’re a casual chatter on a few channels, it is often beneficial to use a dedicated IRC client. By using a client, you are able to have more features such as scripts, logging, and more advanced channel moderation tools.
Below is a list of some IRC clients. It is not an exhaustive list, so if you do not like any of the clients, search around the web for one that you do like.
Do you recommend any of these clients, or one that isn’t listed? Feel free to add a comment, and let us know.
Below is a list of some IRC clients. It is not an exhaustive list, so if you do not like any of the clients, search around the web for one that you do like.
| Client | Supported Platforms |
| mIRC | Windows |
| IceChat | Windows |
| X-Chat 2 | Windows |
| Colloquy | Macintosh |
| X-Chat Aqua | Macintosh |
| Linkinus | Macintosh |
| Konversation | *nix |
| ChatZilla (Firefox addon) | Windows, Macintosh, *nix |
| Opera | Windows, Macintosh, *nix |
| BitchX | Windows, Macintosh, *nix |
| Irssi | Windows, Macintosh, *nix |
Quote Database
Dec 18th
Development of the long awaited quote database has finally completed today. It was halted for an extended period owing to Anope’s old encryption being stranger than a hippie on Halloween. We have converted the majority of the passwords in our database to SHA1 and it is therefore now possible to use the QDB.
Check it out and submit some hilarious quotes of your own at http://www.geekshed.net/qdb/.
If you have any problems, come and see us in #help on irc.geekshed.net.
Check it out and submit some hilarious quotes of your own at http://www.geekshed.net/qdb/.
If you have any problems, come and see us in #help on irc.geekshed.net.
Normal service is resumed
Dec 11th
Due to an over keen data-centre staff member inadvertently taking one of our servers from its rack and formatting it, we have suffered an extended period of downtime for some of our services. These services include RSS topic feeds and User Count badges.
A new server was brought online today and we have restored the information from backups to this server. Normal service is now resumed.
If you notice any problems, let us know in #help on irc.geekshed.net.
Access System Tutorial
Dec 10th
On GeekShed, we have two access systems. Standard access system, and XOP. XOP is a simplification of the access system to make things a bit easier. However, with simplification comes a loss of features.
XOP is enabled by default for newly registered channels. It has 4 ChanServ commands – VOP, HOP, AOP and SOP for auto voice, auto halfop, auto op and auto admin, respectively. See ChanServ Commands for help with those commands.
The regular access system really isn’t very difficult to get your head around and provides you with much more control over your channel. To use it, you must first turn XOP off with the command:
/cs set #channel xop off
Following this, you must use the access level system to give people certain privileges in your channel. The access level system uses numbers to represent access. They range between -2 and 10000. The list below shows which levels, by default, map to which access within the IRC server:
-2 – Unable to join the channel
-1 – Not allowed to be oped in the channel
0 – Regular user
3 – Voiced user
4 – Halfop user
5 – Full op user
10 – Admin user
9999 – Channel owner
To change the access level of a user, use the following command:
/cs access #channel add
An example of the use of this command is:
/cs access #chills add Phil 5
This would make Phil level 5 (an op, by default) in #chills.
However, there is much more to the access system than this. You can customize many aspects of your channel.
These are:
AUTODEOP :: Channel operator status disallowed
AUTOHALFOP :: Automatic mode +h
AUTOOP :: Automatic channel operator status
AUTOPROTECT :: Automatic mode +a
AUTOVOICE :: Automatic mode +v
NOJOIN :: Not allowed to join channel
SIGNKICK :: No signed kick when SIGNKICK LEVEL is used
ACC-LIST :: Allowed to view the access list
ACC-CHANGE :: Allowed to modify the access list
AKICK :: Allowed to use AKICK command
SET :: Allowed to use SET command (not FOUNDER/PASSWORD)
BAN :: Allowed to use BAN command
BANME :: Allowed to ban him/herself
CLEAR :: Allowed to use CLEAR command
GETKEY :: Allowed to use GETKEY command
HALFOP :: Allowed to use HALFOP/DEHALFOP commands
HALFOPME :: Allowed to (de)halfop him/herself
INFO :: Allowed to use INFO command with ALL option
KICK :: Allowed to use KICK command
KICKME :: Allowed to kick him/herself
INVITE :: Allowed to use INVITE command
OPDEOP :: Allowed to use OP/DEOP commands
OPDEOPME :: Allowed to (de)op him/herself
PROTECT :: Allowed to use PROTECT/DEPROTECT commands
PROTECTME :: Allowed to (de)protect him/herself
TOPIC :: Allowed to use TOPIC command
UNBAN :: Allowed to use UNBAN command
VOICE :: Allowed to use VOICE/DEVOICE commands
VOICEME :: Allowed to (de)voice him/herself
MEMO :: Allowed to list/read channel memos
ASSIGN :: Allowed to assign/unassign a bot
BADWORDS :: Allowed to use BADWORDS command
FANTASIA :: Allowed to use fantaisist commands
GREET :: Greet message displayed
NOKICK :: Never kicked by the bot’s kickers
SAY :: Allowed to use SAY and ACT commands
These levels are all minimum levels, except AUTODEOP and NOJOIN, which are maximum levels. Thus, any user with an access level higher than the one defined for a particular access level name will have permission to do that.
To see how these are currently configured in your channel, use the command:
/cs levels #channel list
Any of these can be customized using the command:
/cs levels #channel set
So… If you would like users of level 7 and above to be able to read channel memos in #chills, you would do:
/cs levels #chills set memo 7
As you can see, the power provided by the non-XOP access system is incredibly diverse. Give it a try – you never know, you might like it.
Any questions, ask in #help.
Network Wide Bot System
Dec 10th
Those of you with better memory may remember this. Development of this was started before those of us who run GeekShed left WyldRyde. For obvious reasons, development was postponed and has, fairly recently, resumed.
For those of you who don’t remember, here is an overview…
GeekShed is releasing a network wide bot system named ShedServ. This is a modular system, written in Java. It links directly to the GeekShed network and provides services to channel owners. Because the system is so extensible, there is little that it cannot do and we are more than happy to take suggestions for features which you, the channel owners, would like.
At present, the core of the system is written. We also have 2 modules – one for enabling your channel in the system and the other for creating and assigning bots to your channel. The first feature creating module that shall be written is a responder module. This will allow channel owners to add triggers to the bot which will trigger a response, when used in the channel. For example, you will be able to add a !site trigger which says “Our website is http://www.somesite.com/ – Visit us today!”.
Other features for the future are RSS feed parsing, ability to register nicknames from the GeekShed website and many others that I cannot remember right now.
ETA of this system is currently unknown but we hope to have it complete within the next 2 weeks. Once it is released, we are looking for testers. The requirements to become a tester are…
- First a foremost, you MUST understand that this is an experimental system and that you are TESTING it. You must also accept that you may find bugs and exploits in it and that it really isn’t clever to cause havoc, using these. These bugs and exploits should be reported to #help to get them fixed for the stable release.
- Your channel must have a user average of 5+ users.
- You must also tweet or blog about GeekShed, your favourite channels and this blog post.
- You must finally comment on this post to say that you would like to try the system, stating your nickname, your channel and the link to your tweet or blog post.
We look forward to hearing from you and thank you for using GeekShed.
New Server and Staff Member
Dec 5th
Today, GeekShed has welcomed another server to its array and another staff member to its ranks. We are pleased to announce the linking of a new server, based in Kent, England, named Andromus. This server has been donated by Kyle, who, after many years of service to GeekShed has been asked to join our staff team. This is never a decision taken lightly (see can I be an oper on GeekShed for info) and we wholly believe that he will be a great asset to the team. Kyle is based in Australia and has much experience running IRC networks. Feel free to come chat to him in #help on irc.geekshed.net.
GeekShed comment avatars
Dec 10th
Posted by Phil in Tutorial
GeekShed links its comments with gravatar.com to provide user avatars next to their comments. The comments on the GeekShed site are linked, via your e-mail address, with your account at gravatar.com.
If you would like an avatar on the GeekShed site, register for a gravatar.com account and link your e-mail address and avatars to it. Once you have done this, your avatar will show up for all your GeekShed comments, old and new.
Note: It sometimes takes up to an hour for the systems to update and GeekShed to start showing your avatar. Ensure you have linked the e-mail address you used for your GeekShed comments to gravatar and all should work great.
Any questions, ask in #help on irc.geekshed.net