• to go to the "back door" of chat: go here and then click on GoTo and you will come to a page that will let you use any IRC server. For a list of IRC servers check out my IRC server list.
• to go directly to an IRC chat room (channel) just press the GoTo key on the keyboard, erase the http:// and type in:
  wtvchat://ircchatserver:port#/?channel=name
  ie. to go to the IRC chat room/channel named #webtv on Talk City, you would type in:
  wtvchat://chat.talkcity.com:6667/?channel=webtv
  (The port number is usually always 6667. Leave out the /?channel=name ending and you will get a list of the public chatrooms currently open on the chat server you typed in.)
• to play any sound file while chatting on IRC: just press the goto key, erase the http:// and type in the address for the sound file
• to view the full message headers of an incoming e-mail: click here for the trick
• click the GoTo key and erase the "http://" and type in:
  wtv-tricks:/border
  (this will give you a screen to change the WebTV screen border)... also instead of the word border... replace it with the word chat to get the IRC chat screen, or replace it with the word tour to start the WebTV Tour
• hold down the Alt key and press any of the letter or number/symbol keys to get special characters
• when the unit is off press the options key a couple times then type in 411 (the lights on the box should blink on and off) then turn the box on and you will get the info screen for your WebTV box
• also with the unit off press the options key a couple times then type in 217 to get the dialing options when you turn your box on
• with the unit off: press the options key a few times then type in 77437 and turn on the box to get the obscure dialing options
• when using HTML in your signature make sure you put width and height attributes for your images - this usually makes the text of the message appear before all the images load therefore reducing the load time
  ie. <img src="http://pic.com/pic.gif" height=20 width=40>
• to go to a newsgroup: press the GoTo key, delete the "http://" and type in:
  news:newsgroup name
  
• to post to more than one newsgroup at once just put commas between each newsgroup address
  ie. alt.discuss.webtvplus, alt.discuss.n2play, alt.discuss.html

Tricks for WebTV Plus users only:

• hold down the Ctrl key and press the Power key to switch from WebTV to regular TV (channel 4 on your TV) and do the same thing to get back to WebTV [this trick has the same function as the TV/Video button on the remote does]
• when you are viewing the TV listings hold down the Cmd key and press the right arrow key to move to the next day's listings for the same time, or hold down the Cmd key and press the left arrow key to move back a day
• when you are viewing the TV listings hold down the Cmd key and press the up arrow key to go to the first channel in the listings, or hold down the Cmd key and press the down arrow key to go to the last channel in the listings
• to view the TV window while using the web, just hold down the Cmd key and press W
• to move the TV window from left to right, just hold down the Cmd key and press M