Help with Chat!

[ShadedWings]

Heeellp! I've decided to be a little more people-friendly and try to talk with some of you guys *fights off the insane need to run away and lurk* since this is one forum I really do like and am seemingly keeping up with... but I'm having trouble getting into the live chat thingy...

Here's what's happening: I hit the link to go to Live Chat from the main forum page, it gives me the "log in" type page. I put in ShadedWings in the "Enter your user name:" field and hit "Go Chat". It now tells me "Sorry, you need to have a Java 1.4.x enabled browser to use PJIRC."

Now I'm not usually an entire noob dealing with computer things, and maybe it's because it's 3am but I'm at a loss on what to do. I don't feel like fiddling with random things for three hours to figure it out, so if someone could please suggest a way to make this work? Or perhaps an alternate route to the chat other than browser? I'd be forever appreciative!

[Broomjockey]

Well, what browser do you use?

As for non-browser alternatives, if you have mIRC (or a similar chat client) or have a program with a built-in chat client, you can connect through that. I don't remember the settings, as it's been several months since I've been in, but I'm sure one of the other mods can remember/find out if you choose this route.

[ShadedWings]

I use Internet Explorer (yes I know firefox is better, but I'm giving it a chance since it's been ages since I've had it and recently got Vista). I could get mIRC again easily enough I suppose. I'll definitely ponder that.. but, sleep first methinks.

Appreciate the info, and any others who have more to add!

[Broomjockey]

If you're using IE, then the only thing I could suggest is going and manually getting the updated Java from their homepage and running the patch manually, as usually it just grabs the latest of stuff like that on its own.

[ShadedWings]

Got it working with an update to Java. Thanks muchly!