Introducing Chat 2.0 December 4th, 2007
The chat room has been upgraded. It no longer queries periodically for new messages. Instead, a permanent connection is established to the chat server by a Java applet. This means that users of the chat room must have Java installed and enabled. I regret this potential annoyance to some, but the benefits far out-weigh the costs. Another benefit is that chat 2.0 is far less consuming of server resources. During heavy load times, the old chat would become unusable, but the new one will be fine. Finally, there is no need to restrict the number of users in the chat room, so you won't see any more "sorry, the chat room is full" messages!