Calvin’s Hub

Before we got torrents, P2P and even before Napster, mIRC was the best place where you could get lots of movies, apps and mp3’s for free. It’s not an easy thing to use for downloading but once you get the hang of it, you’ll learn of its benefits.

I’m an avid user of mIRC back in college and I still have it installed in my machine for the occasional hard-to-find mp3’s and for e-books. It’s very difficult to find the e-book that you want from LimeWire or torrents so I’ll teach you how you could easily get them from mIRC.

The instructions here are a bit detailed so forgive me if you’re looking for a short guide.

You have to get the latest version of mIRC and install it in your machine. You don’t have to register it if you don’t want to.

Joining a channel

Before you can go to a channel and start your downloads, create some login details first.

It’s time to connect to a server. Here are a couple of places in mIRC where you can get e-books.

Server: Undernet
Channel: #Bookz

Server: IRCHighway
Channel: #ebooks

Since I’m having trouble joining channel #bookz in Undernet (always full), I’ll go to IRCHighway instead.

In the Connect menu, click Servers and look for IRCHighway then click Select. Then click Connect to server.

Wait until you get connected.

Before doing anything else, you need to tweak some settings to allow downloading. Go to Tool > Options > Sounds, then click Requests. Uncheck Send !nick file as private message.

(Optional) Still in the Options, click DCC and select Auto-get file so that you don’t have to babysit your downloads.

When done click OK.

You can start joining a channel. In the command line type /j ebooks (/j bookz if your’re in Undernet) then hit Enter.

Geting your e-Book

Ok in the channel, you can begin searching for an e-book. The search command is @find <keyword>. For example if I want to find James Patterson’s Step on a Crack, I’ll type “@find patterson step crack“.

Then wait for a few seconds for people/bots with positive matches to send you a private message. There will be a lot if what you’re looking for is popular.

Click each private window to check if they got the file that you want. Once you find one, select and copy the command on how to get the file. Highlight the text then press CTRL-C to copy the command.

The get command starts with “!” and ends with the filename.

For example, MysteryTrain has a lot of results and I need a file with a .lit extension so I’m gonna copy the command !MysteryTrain Patterson, James - Step on a Crack (v1.0).lit

Then go back to the main channel (#ebooks) and paste the command there and hit Enter.

Wait for awhile before the download window appears.

The download speed depends on the sharer but e-Book files seldom exceed 1 MB. When done, you can get the file from the download folder.

The default download folder is C:\Program Files\mIRC\download.

That’s it! Enjoy your e-Book. Let me know if you’re having troubles with my instructions by leaving a comment so I can clear things up for you.

You might also be interested in:

• Are you fond of audio books?
• The future of books
• How to read eBooks on your iPod Touch
• Why join a book club?

Filed under: Tips n' Trix