Hello Everyone:

The twice-weekly Pianotech live chats have been a great success over the
past few years, with active participants from many parts of the globe.
Thanks to all of you who join in with us and if you haven't participated
yet we hope to see you in the future, even if it's just to say hello some day!

Chat times are Tuesday and Thursday evenings from about 8pm-1am Eastern
Time and Greenwich Mean Time (Tuesday mornings in North America).
There is now an International Sunday chat as well, taking place Sunday
mornings for those in North America and Sunday Evening for those closer to
Greenwich.

The #pianotech channel is carried on the "Starlink-IRC" network.
Starlink-IRC supports the #pianotech channel with a browser-based Java chat
as well as WEB-TV.

To those who do not wish to learn (or load) another program or have had
problems connecting with us in the past, connecting to the live chat is
also simple if your browser supports "Java" as most modern browsers do. Go
to: http://houston.tx.us.starlink-irc.org/ Follow the simple directions and
join #pianotech.

This is an excellent opportunity to interact with other technicians
worldwide in real time. On either of the two nights you may run into many
people whom you may know from these lists and from conventions. Discussions
range from shop talk about tools and techniques to piano design and of
course, using the Internet. Additional public and private "rooms" can be
set up instantly for mini-technicals if required without having to leave
the #pianotech channel.

The #pianotech "ftp" site, with MIDI files, pictures and other materials
used in current and previous discussions can be found at:
http://www.musselwhite.com/pub

Complete information about the IRC channel can be found on the excellent
"Official #Pianotech WWW Page" at: http://www.vanderpiano.com/ircpiano.html

Many thanks to Kathleen and David Vanderhoofven for developing and hosting
the page.

For detailed information on Starlink-IRC including how to connect with your
browser or through WEB-TV please go to: http://www.starlink-irc.org/

If anyone has any questions, please EMail myself or David unless you feel
the list participants might be interested. Live chat is a great way to
exchange ideas or just spend some time in friendly conversation with
like-minded people.

We're hoping to see some of you Tuesday and/or Thursday evenings as well as
Sundays (or ANY time!) in #pianotech on Starlink-IRC.

John


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