The Netbook is lacking IRC and instant-messaging clients. This can easily be solved. For instant-messaging, you will need a suitable server too - a Linux box on ADSL, for example. The first step is to get IRC up and running:

1. Get hold of the IBM Alphaworks Java IRC client. It's no longer available from Alphaworks, but there's a version here. If that link breaks, try the local one here. Extract (with directory structure intact) into a new directory called "IRC".
   If you don't already have a JRE, go and find one. The Netbook has it installed as a standard item.
2. Get hold of "wanman"'s support files here (or via local mirror here).
3. Move IRC.app, IRC.aif, IRC.txt and default.ini into the IRC directory.
4. Make sure all files in the IRC directory can be written to.
5. Copy the entire directory, with subdirectories, into System/Apps on your Psion.
6. Launch the application.

Considerations:

• A ".IRC.ini" file will be created in the root of your C drive to store changes to the default settings.
• While you can configure servers using the built-in interface, I find it easier to use the text editor directly on default.ini. The format of the file is fairly obvious.

With that done, install Bitlbee on your server. It's mostly written for Linux, but it'll run on the BSDs, Amiga, and apparently even on Windows.

1. If you don't want to expose that interface to the world - and why should you? - consider firewalling its port from the outside world, and connecting via an SSH tunnel.
2. Once you have connected to bitlbee, use /query <nick> to fork off a dialogue window.

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