It pretty much operates like Facebook if ya have that. Otherwise, you click on the bar at the bottom of the page and it will tell you which of your friends are "online" (green dot) and which ones are not. You then click on their name and a chat window comes up where you can shoot the shit if you so desire.

If you don't want to use this, go to Accounts at the top of the page and there is an option somewhere to disable the chat bar.

Hope that helps

also..only people on your friends list will appear, not everyone on line lol..just soz ya know!

I get that green dot means online and black dot means not online ... WTF does the red dot stand for ? (and don't say that means 'on the rag')    

Yeah, I was wondering that too SaNNdy - although I was in India last year and I noticed that a lot of the women there have them on their foreheads, so maybe there is some connection.

I just saw a yellow dot and am having w/s fears

Red means busy, not sure about yellow.

You can also go into your account at the top of the page and set a permanent status, such as "invisible" or off line.

yellow means you chatted with Seaxun and got the man flu

Damn sheep.

*coughshacksgrabsahankie*

If i go down you all go down wiv me
old seaxun proverb.

Thanks for all the advice and lauughs. One more Q....How do I make myself "visible" to the others online?

On the chat bar at the bottom just to the right of the "Who's Online" there is a icon that looks like some kinda nutbob thingamajig. Click on that (Chat Options it's called) and you can change your status options to whatever you'd like.

and like Mrs. O said...you only show up on your friends "online" lists...

Seems like it should give you some indication that you're "On line" and visible to others(after you set your IM Status and hit Enter).

look at the "Who's Online" icon to the right of the IM toolbar...the little green dot next to the icon indicates that you are online and visible to your friends. If you set your IM status to busy, it shows red, switch to the offline or invisible status and it's grey.

OK...Thanks, Humper!

no problem