Now it's very well possible that you are not familiar with IRC, it's pretty old-skool and it's not so widely used anymore. Old-skool as it may be, getting started with is not so hard. All you need is a PC or Mac with an internet connection and an IRC client. I can recommend mIRC as one of the nicer clients around. It has a lot of features but is still easy to use.

You can get a free trial of mIRC here. The software isn't expensive if you want to buy it ($20), if you use this link you can even get a 50% discount (making it only $10).

Once you have installed your client, connect to a Freenode server. If you use mIRC these are by default set in the server list. Just click and connect! Don't forget to setup a username, this will be displayed in the chat channels.

If you managed to connect to one of the Freenode servers you are now ready to join the TYPO3 channel. Accomplish this by typing the following in the typeable area at the bottom of the window.

/join #typo3

There, now you should be in! Chat-away and have fun!

Suggestions if you are in the need of help

Getting help isn't usually to hard, but it's not just all taking. The nicest is if you can also give something to this nice community. Here's some guidelines you should keep in mind when asking for help:

• Be nice, nobody likes to help some cranky dude!
• If someone helped you, thank him/her! Don't just leave the channel and go mind your own business
• If you had a problem and couldn't solve it in the channel but solved it afterwards, post the solution! The people who tried to help you will love to hear it
• Don't nag about other people, if you think something can be done better say so in an appropriate way
• If someone solved a problem for or with you and thus saved you a lot of time, you should be grateful to that person. Donating a small amount of money to someone might encourage him/her to help you and others in the future as well.
• Try to do a little research before asking questions, TYPO3 is open-source and many things (including extensions) are well documented. Search on Google! If you think you found a bug or a problem in TYPO3 or in an extension look around on http://bugs.typo3.org for the TYPO3 core and on http://forge.typo3.org for most extensions
• Help and be helped!