New Binder Bulletin Chat Server

[Bill Thebert <bthebert@domain.elided>]

The Binder Bulletin has just acquired its own multi-room
chat server license.  The hosting-provider that we had been
using will cease offering Volano Chat at the end of this
month.  We therefore acquired a license of our own, and put
our "retired" web server to use as a dedicated chat server.
(Our web server was recently upgraded to a dual Pentium-II
350 MHz box.)

The benefits/improvements are many:

1) Different-topic Chats no longer need to be "scheduled" on
different nights.  "OldIHC" (pre-1960), "DieselTalk", and
plain old "Binder Chat" will ALL be available concurrently.

2) Additional rooms can be created as the need arises.  The
above three rooms are available now.  Anyone may use any
room for any purpose at any time.  Two "Spare Rooms" will be
available shortly for unspecified topics as required.

3) One can see who is IN a particular room prior to
entering.  If a room is empty, no need to log in.

4) Though OUR utilization of the chat server will increase,
the OVERALL load on the chat server will be decreased, since
we will no longer be "sharing" a common chat server with
other web sites.  Performance and reliability should both be
improved.

5) "Binder Chat" was the last item remaining on the
"binderbulletin.com" server.  The transition of this final
component to "binderbulletin.org" will allow us to cancel
our hosting contract with this provider.  Costs will
decrease, allowing us to divert those funds to other
community-building projects.

The new URL for Binder Chat is:

http://www.binderbulletin.org/chat/

WebMasters with links to Binder Chat on their sites are
urged to update the references to this new URL.

If you've not yet dropped in on Binder Chat, here's the
current schedule:

Monday Nights -- "OldIHC Special Interest Group"
Wednesday Nights -- "Binder Chat -- General"
Thursday Nights -- "IH Diesel Special Interest Group"

As described above, all three of these rooms will now be
available on all nights.  But the largest number of folks
will likely still be in attendance on the scheduled
evenings.  Drop in for some "real-time" contact with your
fellow IH-lovers.

Sincerely,

Bill Thebert
The Binder Bulletin
http://www.binderbulletin.org