Perhaps Pow Wow would provide a more stable platform but:

An officail Mudcat room is planned for the future.

It would require people downloading and installing another load of software.

Many of the problems I have had with ICQ have been connected with people trying to learn how to use new software and that process would presumable have to be repeated.

I agree that ICQ is more geared to individual chats and the Active List is new but apart from this once, it has sovled many of the problems and I believe that this crash (ICQ itself - not the AL server) was caused by a stiuation that could easily be avoided with a little forethought.

I take it you mean set up a POW WOW community. Can you explain the following?

"Note: This option is available only if your provider has enabled Communities." - does that mean it needs somebody with an ISP who provides a special service?

"1. Do Not Use Your Normal Electronic Address If ...

... you expect to log into this application simultaneously from multiple locations. You should create a unique User which will be used only to host a Community. If you start a Community using your normal electronic address and then log in from a different computer, the registration server will update the IP address which is associated with the electronic address. In effect, your Community will no longer exist and people will not be able to join it.

Example:

Fred's electronic address is fred@isp8468.net and he hosts a Community with the same address. Since both Fred and his Community are running on the same machine, both will have the same IP address. When a person wants to contact Fred or join his Community, the message is sent to the registration server which translates the isp8468 portion of Fred's address to the numerical IP address equivalent (such as 123.45.67.890) and then forwards the message to the correct machine.

This doesn't cause any confusion because incoming messages include header information which Fred's program uses to route the messages either to Fred as a person or to Fred's Community.

With his Community up and running, Fred goes to a friend's house to admire her new computer setup. While there, he downloads and installs this application and logs in using his normal electronic address -- fred@isp8468.net. The registration server notices that Fred has moved to a new physical location and updates his IP address.

Anyone wanting to contact Fred still can do so because their messages are routed to the correct machine.

However, requests to join Fred's Community also are routed to the new location. This application receives these messages and checks to see what Communities it is running at the current location. Since Fred's Community is not running at the current location, This application reports that the Community is not active and Fred starts getting messages asking why his Community isn't in operation."

How is this going to affect me or anybody else trying to host it who has their IP addresses allocated dynamically (essenitally a different location each time) or does that mean one has to use their email address service and hve another set of mail to check?

If you can set it up, go for it but I won't be attempting this one.

Jon