GeekShed IRC Network
If You Use The Mibbit Chat Widget…
Feb 13th
If you use the Mibbit chat widget on your site, please ensure that server messages are visible to users. Having it disabled makes it so the server and services messages to the user are not displayed, and this can cause confusion (e.g. when the user is using a registered nick and all of a sudden their nick is changed and they don’t know why, when they are trying to change their nickserv settings and see no feedback from services, etc.)
To enable the server messages, look at the embed URL that you are using. If you see
Thanks to MikeWard1701 for bringing this to our attention.
To enable the server messages, look at the embed URL that you are using. If you see
noServerNotices=1, you should either set it to 0 or remove it entirely.Thanks to MikeWard1701 for bringing this to our attention.
GeekShed Embed v2
Feb 9th
EDIT: This post is about a WordPress plugin that has been written. It is NOT about the TFlash client itself. No updates for the TFlash client are planned at this time.
About six months ago, I (Ryan (ninja in #help)) created GeekShed Embed, a WordPress plugin so that GeekShed users that use WordPress to power their website could easily embed a GeekShed chat room into their site. At the time, I promised that there would be updates; however, I did not have time until recently to do anything with it.
Most of what I wanted to add has been already added to it, but I wanted to ask the community and see if there was anything that you can think of that should be included, or if there were any bugs that you have run into.
So if you have a suggestion for what should be included in the update, or have run into a bug, please leave a comment here with details. Assuming it’s nothing too far-fetched, I should be able to include it in the update.
Note: if you have run into a bug and are reporting it, please include the WordPress version you are running, and whether it is WordPress MU/MS or a regular WordPress installation.
About six months ago, I (Ryan (ninja in #help)) created GeekShed Embed, a WordPress plugin so that GeekShed users that use WordPress to power their website could easily embed a GeekShed chat room into their site. At the time, I promised that there would be updates; however, I did not have time until recently to do anything with it.
Most of what I wanted to add has been already added to it, but I wanted to ask the community and see if there was anything that you can think of that should be included, or if there were any bugs that you have run into.
So if you have a suggestion for what should be included in the update, or have run into a bug, please leave a comment here with details. Assuming it’s nothing too far-fetched, I should be able to include it in the update.
Note: if you have run into a bug and are reporting it, please include the WordPress version you are running, and whether it is WordPress MU/MS or a regular WordPress installation.
Does GeekShed spy on channels or private messages?
Feb 7th
In short, no. We value your privacy and, as a company, we do not store any logs of any conversations, private or otherwise. There are a few exceptions which I shall explain below:
Posts such as “ADVISORY: How to tell if your Unrealircd network is spying on you” found here are simply ignorant scaremongering. GeekShed has modules which hook into channel and private messages – for example, we have a module to block private messages when umode D is set. These modules are all in the interest of our user’s security and suggesting that hooking into channel and private messages inherently means that a network spys on its users is just silly.
You can see the full and current source code for our ircd at http://code.google.com/p/gs-ircd/.
If you have any questions or issues, feel free to come and chat to us in #help.
- All network staff log the channels that they are in and the private messages that they receive. These logs are typically for the sole reference of that staff member but may be shared with parties who have sufficient jurisdiction to obtain them, if required. We may also call upon users to voluntarily provide logs of channels or private messages, if required.
- GeekShed operates a spam filter to help keep the network safe from spam. When the spam filter is triggered, the user who triggered it is always notified. In addition to this, network staff are notified of the violation and are provided with the full message that triggered the spam filter. This helps us to identify sources of spam and quickly remove these from the network.
- Very rarely we are forced to run our services package in debug mode on the live network in order to diagnose and fix problems with it. This causes all messages seen by services bots to be placed in a debug log. Messages that are logged are private messages to services (e.g. identification to NickServ) and channel messages in any channel with a BotServ bot assigned. We will always notify you when services are going into debug mode.
- All unauthorised messages to OperServ are logged. This is mostly so we can help users who might be looking for another command as there’s very little reason to attempt to use OperServ, except in error.
- All messages sent through services bots with “/bs say” or “/bs act” are logged. This is the default behavior of our services package but is something that we are looking to change soon.
Posts such as “ADVISORY: How to tell if your Unrealircd network is spying on you” found here are simply ignorant scaremongering. GeekShed has modules which hook into channel and private messages – for example, we have a module to block private messages when umode D is set. These modules are all in the interest of our user’s security and suggesting that hooking into channel and private messages inherently means that a network spys on its users is just silly.
You can see the full and current source code for our ircd at http://code.google.com/p/gs-ircd/.
If you have any questions or issues, feel free to come and chat to us in #help.
New Swedish Server – Greenbean
Feb 6th
Kottizen, a new user to GeekShed but a long time member of the Anope and UnrealIRCD support communities has kindly donated a server on behalf of the datacentre he works for, connect2ip.se. The server is located in Växjö, Sweden and adds another great European leaf to the GeekShed network.
We thank Kottizen for the donation of Greenbean and hope it shall benefit our European users.
We thank Kottizen for the donation of Greenbean and hope it shall benefit our European users.
Guess who’s back? Back again!
Feb 4th
Kyle previously joined the GeekShed staff back in late 2009 (original post) but he left to pursue other life interests. He has, though, realised that GeekShed is a pretty fantabulous place to be and is back with avengence.
We’re pleased to have such an experienced and friendly staff member back on the team.
We’re pleased to have such an experienced and friendly staff member back on the team.
Twitter in your channel
Jan 18th
GeekShed provides a twitter bot, aptly named “Twitter”, to provide you with a twitter feed in your channel. It’s very easy to use and doesn’t require that you give over your twitter login. Remember, GeekShed will never ask you for your Twitter login! To use it, follow these simple steps:
All of the commands below need to be done in a PM (private message) with the bot (Twitter).
!register fred asecretpassword
!pin fred asecretpassword 5984934
If this is successful, the bot will tell you so.
!addchan fred asecretpassword #fred
You can do this command again to add your twitter feed to more channels.
If you have any issues with this, please let us know in #help.
All of the commands below need to be done in a PM (private message) with the bot (Twitter).
Register with the bot
Send a PM to the IRC user “Twitter” with the !register command. The syntax of this is: !register <username> <password>. Username and password are the credentials you will use to log into the bot in future. An example of this is:!register fred asecretpassword
Allow the bot to read your twitter feed
When you register, you will be presented with a URL that you must go to and log into your twitter account. Click the “Allow” button and you will be given a PIN code. Now return back to the bot and use the !pin command to tell the bot what your PIN number is. The syntax of this is: !pin <usernam> <password> <pin>. An example of this is:!pin fred asecretpassword 5984934
If this is successful, the bot will tell you so.
Add your channel(s)
You can add up to 10 channels to the bot. You must be an op in a channel in order to add the bot to it. To make the bot announce your tweets in a channel, you need to use the !addchan command. This will make the bot join that channel if it’s not already in there. The syntax of this command is: !addchan <username> <password> <channel>. An example of this is:!addchan fred asecretpassword #fred
You can do this command again to add your twitter feed to more channels.
Tweet and wait
Due to the limitations of Twitter’s API, the bot looks for new tweets every 60 seconds. Within 60 seconds of you tweeting, your tweet will show up in all of the channels you have added.Other commands
You can delete your account and remove the bot from a channel using other commands in the bot. PM the bot “!help” to see these commands.If you have any issues with this, please let us know in #help.
BNC Usability
Jan 16th
Our BNC service now has 109 registered users. This is good. We do, however, get questions daily about connecting to it. Although I am sure this is mainly due to people not reading the manual, it’d be easier for all involved if there were clear instructions about how to connect to the BNC with different IRC clients.
For this, we need your help! Even if you don’t use the BNC service all we need to know is:
1) What client are you using and on which Operating System?
2) Do you need to install anything to get SSL working on your client of choice? If so, what?
3) What is the command to open a new server connection to irc.server.com on port 8888 using SSL?
Please post these as comments to this post. See the first comment (mine) as an example. Naturally, if someone else has already posted about a client you need not repeat the instructions unless their instructions were incorrect.
Thanks in advance for your time :)
For this, we need your help! Even if you don’t use the BNC service all we need to know is:
1) What client are you using and on which Operating System?
2) Do you need to install anything to get SSL working on your client of choice? If so, what?
3) What is the command to open a new server connection to irc.server.com on port 8888 using SSL?
Please post these as comments to this post. See the first comment (mine) as an example. Naturally, if someone else has already posted about a client you need not repeat the instructions unless their instructions were incorrect.
Thanks in advance for your time :)
1st Birthday Competition
Oct 17th
It’s been a long and eventful year, but we’ve survived! GeekShed shall be 1 year old on 24th October. To celebrate our first year, we have some giveaways for you. We’re not as rich as Microsoft, so don’t get your hopes up too much. We are giving away two $50 (USD) gift vouchers to Amazon. These prizes will be purchased after the giveaway, so if you have any particular objection to Amazon, we can make a reasonable accommodation.
The first competition is designed to boost the size of our YouTube channel. We’re asking you to create a video of maximum length 5 minutes. Your video must help our other users in some way or another. The standard idea would be to create a video tutorial but we encourage you to think outside the box and surprise us. Our YouTube channel can be found at http://www.youtube.com/GeekShedIRC. We would like to note that videos that are duplications of what’s already on our channel will be rejected. Once you have done your video, contact us in #help and we’ll give you some help on uploading it. You can create your video using a paid but very good application named Camtasia. This has a free trial which would work well for making this video. A free app which is rated quite highly is CamStudio. The best video, as chosen by the GeekShed staff will win the voucher. We’ll put all of the videos that are of good enough quality onto the channel. Please ensure that the audio and video is clear and of a high enough quality to be viewable in full screen. 720p minimum is suggested. It’d also be ideal if you could mention GeekShed in text/audio on the video to save any future copyright problems.
The second competition is to try to boost our user numbers through the use of Twitter. All you need to do is tweet/re-tweet the following, be a registered user on GeekShed, as well as being connected to the #birthday channel on GeekShed at 11pm UTC (6pm EDT) on 24th October 2010 (our birthday):
Once the draw is done, we will ensure the winner has tweeted and is registered on GeekShed before offering up the prize.
If you’re a video maker, you can also enter the random draw – you never know, you might win twice!
Any questions? Ask in #help.
The first competition is designed to boost the size of our YouTube channel. We’re asking you to create a video of maximum length 5 minutes. Your video must help our other users in some way or another. The standard idea would be to create a video tutorial but we encourage you to think outside the box and surprise us. Our YouTube channel can be found at http://www.youtube.com/GeekShedIRC. We would like to note that videos that are duplications of what’s already on our channel will be rejected. Once you have done your video, contact us in #help and we’ll give you some help on uploading it. You can create your video using a paid but very good application named Camtasia. This has a free trial which would work well for making this video. A free app which is rated quite highly is CamStudio. The best video, as chosen by the GeekShed staff will win the voucher. We’ll put all of the videos that are of good enough quality onto the channel. Please ensure that the audio and video is clear and of a high enough quality to be viewable in full screen. 720p minimum is suggested. It’d also be ideal if you could mention GeekShed in text/audio on the video to save any future copyright problems.
The second competition is to try to boost our user numbers through the use of Twitter. All you need to do is tweet/re-tweet the following, be a registered user on GeekShed, as well as being connected to the #birthday channel on GeekShed at 11pm UTC (6pm EDT) on 24th October 2010 (our birthday):
It’s the GeekShed IRC Network’s 1st birthday and they’re doing a giveaway! See http://bit.ly/9Bpd9P for full info.
Once the draw is done, we will ensure the winner has tweeted and is registered on GeekShed before offering up the prize.
If you’re a video maker, you can also enter the random draw – you never know, you might win twice!
Any questions? Ask in #help.
Introducing GeekShed Embed: A WordPress Plugin
Aug 11th
After helping many people who were having trouble adding the TFlash chat client to their WordPress powered website, I decided to write a plugin that would create a shortcode that people can use to easily embed their chatroom into their site.
The plugin has been submitted and accepted into the WordPress plugin repository, so installation is simple. To install, simply go to the Add New Plugin page of your WordPress install, and search for GeekShed. Under GeekShed Embed, click install. Supply your FTP/SSH information if required, and hit Proceed. The shortcode currently supports three parameters: channel, width, and height. Any, none, or all can be used, in any combination.
Note: If the width is less than 500 or the height is less than 375, parts of the chat box will be cut off and not visible. Future versions will fix this issue.
Examples:
Comments, questions, suggestions? Leave them as a comment to this post, and the will be addressed as soon as possible.
The plugin has been submitted and accepted into the WordPress plugin repository, so installation is simple. To install, simply go to the Add New Plugin page of your WordPress install, and search for GeekShed. Under GeekShed Embed, click install. Supply your FTP/SSH information if required, and hit Proceed. The shortcode currently supports three parameters: channel, width, and height. Any, none, or all can be used, in any combination.
Note: If the width is less than 500 or the height is less than 375, parts of the chat box will be cut off and not visible. Future versions will fix this issue.
Examples:
| What You Type | What You Get |
| [geekshed] | A 500 by 375 chat box that displays the channel list once connected |
| [geekshed someChannel] | A 500 by 375 chat box that joins someChannel once connected. |
| [geekshed height=XXX] | A chat box XXX pixels tall and 500 pixels wide. It will display the channel list once connected. |
| [geekshed width=XXX] | A chat box XXX pixels wide and 375 pixels tall. It will display the channel list once connected. |
New Staff Member -tengrrl
Jul 2nd
We would like to announce the addition of a new staff member to our team.
Today, we have asked tengrrl to join our network staff, and she has gratefully accepted. We are very lucky to have another experienced person on the team.
There is a lot to learn, and we are confident she will master this with time. Please welcome tengrrl to our staff and congratulate her on her new position.
Today, we have asked tengrrl to join our network staff, and she has gratefully accepted. We are very lucky to have another experienced person on the team.
There is a lot to learn, and we are confident she will master this with time. Please welcome tengrrl to our staff and congratulate her on her new position.