Alright ladies and gentleman, the time has come to learn the glories that are the NDK IRC Channel, I am your host for this evening, you may call me Batty.
What this thread is, is a
complete How to guide for getting there, using two of the most popular mediums, Pidgin (Z's personal fav), and mIRC.
As I know many, if not most, of you are unfamiliar with IRC, I will keep this simple as possible, and I've even included picture references to help guide you on your way. XD
PidginFirst, I'll start with Pidgin.
You can find it
here.
When you first run the program, it will bring you to an "Accounts" screen, it should look something like this.

Click the Add button

Next it will bring up the "Add Account" screen

Now, click the "Protocol" drop-down box and select "IRC"

After clicking, fill in the boxes as shown. (Please, replace my name with your own, we do not need a mass of Batty's in chat. XD)

After all that is said and done, Click "Save", and close out back to the main screen, which looks something like this.

Now, click on "Buddies" and choose "Add Chat".

On the new screen that pops up, click the "Channel" box and type
#ndk and then "Add"

Now doubleclick the channel in the mail window and...
TADA!
You
should be connected and have very easy access to the chat.
mIRCAlright, this one is not for the weak of heart, ask Ai, I walked her through this one night. ^.^
First and foremost, get it
here.
Then after installing and so on and so forth, run it and it should bring you to a screen that looks something like this

Okay, I'll keep this as simple as possible, the "Full Name" and "Email Address" boxes are required, but you can put whatever you please. I usually jusy put random characters in each, but you can do as you choose. The only field here that you absolutely need is the "Nickname" field, you can skip the "Alternative" all together.
DO NOT click the "Connect to server" button just yet. See the little list on the left side? Good, just below where it says "Connect" should be the word "Servers" click on that. It will bring up a screen that looks like this.

Alright, next, click the button on the very right side that says "Add".

It will bring up a screen that
should look something to this effect.

Next, fill out only the first two boxes, the "description" box put something like, "Freenode" or "NDK". In the "IRC Server" box put
irc.freenode.net then click the add button

Next make sure that the server you just created is highlighted and click the "Select" button, this is
VERY important.

It will then return you to the "Connect" screen. Feel free to click the "Connect to server" button now.
After you connect, it will bring up an "mIRC Favorites" window. Click the add button and a new window will appear, fill out the boxes as shown below, and make sure to click the "Join on connect" box under options.

Click the add button and it will return you to the Favorites window, make sure to click off the "Pop up favorites on connect" box, because it'll annoy you later if you don't.
Click Join and you're in!!!
That should do it for this here tutorial.
If you have any further questions, feel free to PM me, I'm always glad to help.
___________________________________________________________ _____________________Edit!
I wanted to add in how to register for freenode, so that you have the luxory of being able to PM eachother! XD
Whenever you connect to IRC using one of the above methods, the process of registering your "nick" is pretty simple.
If you have an original name that isn't already taken, you'll know if it is, nickserv is kind of annoying about it, you do the following.
In the chatbox you type out
/msg nickserv register (whatever password you would like goes here)After you do that, you should have a PM window tell you that your password has been accepted and
ask you to register an email. I don't think this is required, but heck, lets do it anyways!
after you've done that, simply type out
/msg nickserv set email (choice email here).
Again, it will give you comfirmation, and now, you're all done!
Now, to make life easier, I'll show you how to set Pidgin, I don't know how to do it with mIRC, to automatically enter your password at login.
Refer to the Pidgin guide to get to this screen.

In the box labeled Password, enter the password you set with the /msg nickserv register command in chat.
Tada!
Everytime that you log on it should automatically enter your password, and you'll be free like a bird to do all the great things that registered users get to do!
___________________________________________________________ _________________________Edit #2
It was recently brought to my attention by a couple people that there are java based irc clients, which, I'm not sure why I didn't already think about that, It's all I used to use.
The one that has now been mentioned a couple times is
ircatwork.comNot a bad site, pretty easy to use.
Just fill it out as shown (again, change the name, please XD), and connect.
