9 C H A P T E R © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved1 Communicating in Real Time Now it is also possible to converse in real time.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 1

9C H A P T E R Communicating in Real

Time

Now it is also possible to converse in real time over the Internet. If the person you’re talking to has a video capture card, you can even see the other person on screen.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 2

C H A P T E R 9

Objectives:

Know the most popular methods for communicating in real time over the Internet.

Learn how Instant Messaging can let you chat with your friends at any time over the Internet.

Understand how Internet Relay Chat (IRC) organizes conversations into channels.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 3

C H A P T E R 9

Objectives:

Enter Web-based chat rooms on the Internet and engage other users in meaningful real-time conversations.

Download Microsoft’s NetMeeting software and use it to share data and make entries on a whiteboard shared with conference members over the Internet.

Learn how to equip your PC for videoconferencing for under $100.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 4

C H A P T E R 9

Objectives:

Look in on videoconferences hosted on CUseeMe sites on the Internet, whether or not you have videoconferencing hardware.

Understand the purposes of and the distinctions between a MUD, a MOO, and a MUSH.

Set up your own private chat room on the Internet.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 5

C H A P T E R 9

Instant Messaging

Instant messaging is a real-time communication protocol that lets you send and receive instant messages over the Internet.

An instant message is an electronic notification that appears on your computer screen.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 6

C H A P T E R 9

Instant Messaging

There are four major brands of instant messaging:

ICQ AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) Microsoft’s MSN Messenger Yahoo IM.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 7

C H A P T E R 9

Instant Messaging

ICQ Chat

Functions available to ICQ users.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 8

C H A P T E R 9

Instant Messaging

ICQ Chat

Comparison of the layout option in the ICQ chat

window.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 9

C H A P T E R 9

Chat Rooms

Chat rooms are places on the Internet where you can go to talk with other users in real time.

The most basic kind of chat room is based on text that you type via your computer keyboard.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 10

C H A P T E R 9

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) consists of several networks of IRC servers that support chat on the Internet.

In order to connect to an IRC server, you must run an IRC client program.

The two most popular clients for Windows are mIRC and PIRCH.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 11

C H A P T E R 9

Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

The mIRC chat room client for Windows.

The Ircle chat room client forMacintosh.

The Java-based IRC client for IrCQ-Net.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 12

C H A P T E R 9

Avatar-Based Chat

Avatars take chat into the third dimension by letting you choose a character to represent you in a 3D world.

You type to communicate, but you can also use your mouse to move your character around in a virtual universe.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 13

C H A P T E R 9

Avatar-Based Chat

The avatar-based chat in progress at The Palace during a live interview with Britney Spears.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 14

C H A P T E R 9

Whiteboards and Real-Time Conferences

A computer program that enables remote users to share a common screen across the network is called whiteboard software.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 15

C H A P T E R 9

NetMeeting

Whiteboards and Real-Time Conferences One of the best whiteboard programs

on the Internet is Microsoft’s NetMeeting software.

NetMeeting’s whiteboard gives the conference members a common scratchpad to write on and share ideas.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 16

C H A P T E R 9

NetMeeting

Microsoft has integrated NetMeeting throughout Microsoft Office. Here is an example of users collaborating on a PowerPoint Presentation.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 17

C H A P T E R 9

WebEx

More than 1,200 companies are using a Web-based whiteboard and computer conferencing service created by WebEx.

Features include the real-time sharing of applications, presentations, or documents as well as web co-browsing, live chat, record and playback, remote control and file transfer.

Because the system is Web-based, WebEx can be used by Windows, Macintosh, and Unix users to collaborate on applications running on different platforms.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 18

C H A P T E R 9 Audio and

Videoconferencing

Audio conferencing enables you to hear what people are saying into a microphone during a chat, and videoconferencing enables you to see them as well.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 19

C H A P T E R 9 Videoconferencing

Hardware

The cost of equipping a multimedia PC for videoconferencing has dropped to less

than $100, thanks to the availability of cameras

with built-in computer interfaces.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 20

C H A P T E R 9

CUseeMe

One of the first videoconferencing applications on the Internet is CUseeMe.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 21

C H A P T E R 9 MUDs, MOOs, and

MUSHes

MUDs are synchronous multiuser communication environments that enable participants to take on a persona and create virtual worlds out of their own imaginations.

MUSHes are situated MUDs used for role-playing games

MOOs enable users to share code segments from one another’s characters.

© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 22

C H A P T E R 9 MUDs, MOOs, and

MUSHes

zMUD in action.