... In many ways Sparkpea could be considered a clone of the MSN Chat service.
◘►How it works -
The site is coded in PHP to work with MSNs Chat Control, the rooms and chat listings are connected to five Modified IRCd servers which work like IRCX, I know that sounds incredibly ... Read review
Advantages: Great Support, many active users and features Disadvantages: Might not be a good place for kids!
...on this. In many ways Sparkpea could be considered a clone of the MSN Chat service.
◘►How it works -
The site is coded in PHP to work with MSNs Chat Control, the rooms and chat listings are connected to five Modified IRCd servers which work like IRCX, I know that sounds incredibly technical all it basically means is they have 5 servers which people can chat on and they are related to the different ... ...Microsoft. The IRCX protocol on Spark Pea is an emulated version of Microsoft's design.
The site is basically a Web Chat version of mIRC based networks, but all you need to know really is that it does work!
◘►Alternate Access -
The site can currently be accessed via Internet Explorer and FireFox. You can't currently access the site on Linux or MAC without mIRC. To find out how to access on ... more
Spark Pea is a chat website with many features such as multiple chat rooms, profiles, forums, private messages, plus much more which I will discuss in this article.
◘►Review Contents-
During this review I will look into the features on the website as well as many factors that affect the use of the website for new users and current users. The areas I will be looking at include.
• Site History • Joining Chats & Chatting • Chat room Listings • Other Features • Support • Ease of usability & design • Rules and Regulations • Running and operating a Chat room • MSN Chat Control • How it works • Alternate Access • Conclusion
◘►Spark Pea History-
Speak Pea chat was initially started in 2005 as an alternative to MSN Chat and originally had few users but over the years they have expanded and have many active users, staff and chat rooms and features that are being improved as the site staff have time to do so.
◘►Joining Chats and Chatting -
To join a chat room a chat room you will be required to have MSN Chat Control installed on your PC, which works in Internet Explorer and FireFox Browser with a plug in, unfortunately at the moment the site does not support Opera Browser and probably never will as they cant edit the Chat room plug in which is copyright of Microsoft. If you have problems installing this it's usually because you have Active X Objects turned off on your browser you can enable them in Internet Explorers settings. If you have major problems with joining a chat room you can email support@speakpea.net and they will reply promptly within 12 hours with a solution for you.
The basic requirements for the MSN Chat Control are - 0.5 MB of free space A dial up connection or higher (Download can take up to 3 minutes on dial up, on broadband should be a few seconds) Internet Explorer or FireFox
Once you have got the chat control installed you will be either to join a chat room on the site as a guest or with a registered nickname. Joining a chat room as a guest may mean you are only allowed to view chat and not chat or be a fully involved chatter it depends on the settings for that room. However if you register you will have access to a chat room profile with can be viewed by other members of chat, you wont have Guest_ in front of your name, you can reserve your nickname so its yours and access the other features on the site such as Private messaging, Support features and the forums.
To join the site is quick and easy all you need to do is follow this link http://www.sparkpea.net/register.php which is also located on the sites navigation bar and fill in your details which are kept private by the site owners!, once you have filled in the information you will be asked to verify your email. This would mean a requirement of you joining is to have a valid email address which stops spammers, trolls and site abusers. The e-mail should be received within a few seconds if it doesn't appear it may have been sent to your Junk mail! If you still don't receive it you should email the site staff.
I just signed up with a dummy email to see how long it took and it took me 3 minutes from start to finish.
If you got passed these stages you can now chat in the chat room of your choice in the next part of the review I will discuss how to find a chat room via the chat room category listings.
◘►Chat room listings -
To find a chat room of your interest it is best to do so via the chat room listings categories. The categories Spark Pea has for chat rooms are City Chats, Computing, Fun 'n' Games, General, Interests, Lifestyles, News, Peers, Religion, Role-play, Romance, Sports and Teens. It's good to be aware that some categories for chatting are more active then others the most active sections are General, Romance and Computing.
Quick Tip : If you are looking for the most active chat rooms its best to look at the bottom of the main page where the top 8 most active chat rooms are listed.
The listings themselves are organised in the following order, registered chat rooms which are chat rooms owned by Spark Pea, Followed by permanent regular rooms which are user created rooms that are permanent on the server and finally temporary chat rooms which usually are new chat rooms to the server. The listings also provide other information about the chat rooms including, how many users are in that room, the chat room topic and what language the chat room users mainly speak.
It's worth noting that the majority of rooms on the network are English speaking based and that's the Teens section is highly inactive as it only allows users that are 18 and 19 to join them due to the 18+ rule within the code of conduct.
◘►Other Features
As well as having many chat rooms on the server and the chat room listings feature the site also offers other features which I will discuss in the section of the review.
One of the main features of the site is the profile function which allows you to add information about yourself for other users to read. The profile allows you to include the following information a Chat nickname, Age, Gender, Location, Marital status, Occupation, an about me section, a hobbies section, a likes/dislikes section, a favourite quote and a personal homepage. The profile can be viewed by any member in a chat room via the nicknames menu to the side so it's a good idea to watch what you put in it. The profile also provides a Photo Album feature which allows you to upload a main profile picture and an album of photos it's good to be aware they are not good enough for hosting many pictures like photo bucket. A new feature of profiles that has been recently introduced is profile views. Profiles are good way to let the world know about you and if you join Spark Pea I suggest you use them, but I know there not for everyone.
A second great feature is Private messages which are a bit like e-mail but are sent via member's nickname to other member's nickname and are great way of keeping in touch with the different members you may come in touch with on the site. I have never had any problem with them or be subject of abuse by them. However if you do come across a problem report it to the staff and the will deal with it.
A third great feature the site offers is the forums which offers different categories of message boards members of the site can use to discuss things the sections it offers are, News, General, Website Support, Chat Server Support, IRC Support, PSP, FAQ's and Tutorials and UK Chat as well as an 18+ Section which is only accessible if you have an age above 18 in your profile.
A forth feature this site proudly offer is a collation between them and Fuze FM which allows spark pea users to interact via a 24/7 request based radio system with fun DJ's and a highly active chat room and if you're ever on spark pea I suggest you get involved in this. Unfortunately it only works for most users in Internet Explorer.
A final great feature the additionally offer is the Find a Friend feature which allows you to find a person who you chat to that's online via there user name, it then shows you the chat rooms they may be in. Although now I think about it this could allow you to be stalked but if that happens just tell a staff member lol.
◘►Support -
The support available on the site could be considered as well covered as they try to help people in as many ways possible. The main help features on the site include a chat room called Help Desk, a Support Ticket System, a forum for Support and E-mail support.
Help Desk support allows live help for spark peas users and allows user to receive a much better quality of support it's worth mentioning all spark peas staff are volunteers and help you out of the goodness of there hearts, although Help Desk sometimes isn't manned most the time it is, and staff are helpful, informative and prompt.
The Ticket system allows you to contact staff if help desk is empty or you need help with a problem help desk cannot deal with replies are usually very quick and come with 12 hours. All e-mails sent to Spark Pea usually are replied to by the same people from the ticket system.
The forum offers Tutorials, FAQ's and a dedicated forum to find support and is also a good way to contact staff as well as get help of peers using the chat network.
As well as these official places of support there are also User Created rooms that offer free support some are friendly some are not but there also a good place to try if you need help!, Spark pea also offer a room for chat room owners called Central Square which offers peer to peer support from user to user, however this is generally inactive unfortunately.
◘►Ease of use and design -
The site is user friendly and has an appealing image it's well known in the industry for having one of the better designs, and having an easy navigation as well as good information on the site.
The navigation bar is all one side and contains every link you may need to use the site when you are logged in or logged out. The chat room itself contains all the links you would need whilst chatting in case support is needed etc.
The colours and images on the site could be considered as web 2.0 and are very appealing and pleasing on the eye, this is a very modern site with not many problems, the site is dedicated to making it east for the user and they currently do this via there many methods of support, easy to use website with a great design.
◘►Rules and Regulations-
The site is regulated by SPCN's Code of Conduct which includes the rules of the site this can be viewed at http://www.sparkpea.net/conduct.php. These rules are generally in place to protect you and stop disruptive users, however if one day you do break the Code of Conduct whilst on the site you may be K Lined which simply means you get banned form the sever and kicked from every chat room you are in via a server tool.
Generally if you get banned permanently you can get un-banned if you email the site owner or change you IP, but don't tell them I told you that! The rules on spark pea really do protect the user's best interests in my opinion. One problem I do have with the code of conduct is they state that they do not control the content that is on the site and it may be 18+ content and not safe for children and teens but they do let them use the site.
◘►Running and operating a chat room-
If you are considering to run a chat room on spark pea this is easy to do you simply click Create a Chat on the navigational links are and enter the details for the chat room you are wanting to create which includes, Chat name, Chat Topic, Chat Welcome, The Category you want it in and whether or not you want the Profanity and Spam Filter on. This may lead to you wanting to keep the chat room on the server to do this you would go to Help Desk and ask them to make the room permanent.
Unfortunately MSN Chat Control doesn't allow you to access all the features of the chat room options you may be interested in using this will require mIRC access and certain amount of technical ability you can learn how to do this at http://mshs.vze.com you can also get all the software you may need for this task there you can also receive live help for this in the chat room !!!!!!!MSHS!!!!!!! Which is listed under the computing chat room category of Spark Pea.
◘►MSN Chat Control
The MSN Chat Control which you use to chat on Spark Pea has lots of features that help you interact with other chat users including a chat screen where you can see what people are typing a typing box area, a user list displaying all the users in the room and there user level or importance or an icon displaying what there profile contains.
The different user levels you will see in chat are displayed using graphics Explained below.
Staff are displayed using a MSN Butterfly icon, Chat room owners have a Gold hammer next to there name, Room Helpers/hosts have a brown hammer next to there name and other members are displayed by male/female chat icons.
You also have the ability to use emoticons which are built into the OCX and the ability to change your font and font colour. You can also ignore users, whisper them and tag them.
This is explained more clearly and with graphics at http://www.sparkpea.net/help.php
The use of this chat control is quite controversial as it is not known if it is legal to use or not as Microsoft have never released an official statement on this. In many ways Sparkpea could be considered a clone of the MSN Chat service.
◘►How it works -
The site is coded in PHP to work with MSNs Chat Control, the rooms and chat listings are connected to five Modified IRCd servers which work like IRCX, I know that sounds incredibly technical all it basically means is they have 5 servers which people can chat on and they are related to the different categories. IRCx is a protocol of chat was designed by Microsoft. The IRCX protocol on Spark Pea is an emulated version of Microsoft's design.
The site is basically a Web Chat version of mIRC based networks, but all you need to know really is that it does work!
◘►Alternate Access -
The site can currently be accessed via Internet Explorer and FireFox. You can't currently access the site on Linux or MAC without mIRC. To find out how to access on mIRC follow this link http://www.tg007.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=8053&pid=50523&st=0&#entry50 523 .
However if you can't access chat via your PC or browser I suggest you email Spark Pea to see if they can help you.
◘►Conclusion -
In Conclusion Spark Pea is a safe well moderated active place to chat with great features and great support, however can't be accessed by everyone on the internet, but can by the proportion of users. For those who used MSN Chat it's just like a flash back for new users it can be a bit overwhelming but the help is there but maybe isn't the best place for children.
