NASO CyberChat to premiere Jan. 16

(RACINE, Wis.) — The National Association of Sports Officials (NASO) will premiere a new free service for members Jan. 16 when it goes on-line with its NASO CyberChat, a one-hour one-on-one interview program conducted live on its Internet site.

NASO President Barry Mano will be the initial guest from 11:00 a.m. until Noon Central Standard Time.

Members are encouraged to log on and submit questions that Mano will answer during the chat.

Each month the association of more than 17,000 members will host such an event.

"We are excited to offer this new benefit to our members," said Mano. "The opportunity to go one-on-one with some of officiating’s top personalities will be educational as well as entertaining."

Two other NASO CyberChats are currently scheduled. On Monday, Feb. 17, Randy Christal, NASO board member and the referee for the recent BCS NCAA national championship football game last Jan. 3 (Ohio State versus University of Florida-Miami) will be the guest between 11:00 a.m. Central Standard T and Noon. Christal has worked numerous college bowl games and the NCAA College World Series.

On Thursday, March 6 members can get their tax questions answered when the guest will be tax expert Hal Kaye. Visitors can "Ask Hal" anything related to officiating and income tax issues. That chat is also scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. Central Standard Time and will last one hour.

In order to participate, you must be an NASO member. Instructions on how to login are below.

NASO CyberChat Login Instructions

1. To enter NASO CyberChat:

You must use Internet Explorer, go to URL: http://chat.naso.org

Enter PASSWORD "cyberchat" to access the NASO CyberChat.

Enter a Nick Name, a.k.a., screen name, i.e. "RefMan" no spaces between words, you can use a Capital letter as a word separator.

Enter your Email Address: This is optional.

Choose the Room CyberChat to enter the NASO CyberChat. You can also enter the "Members Only" chat room for open chat.

Browser Interface is default to HTML, this is automatic.

Click on "Enter the Chat" to login to CyberChat.

2. Using the Chat Room:

General

You can chat by typing in the field at the bottom of the chat window and pressing Enter.

Sending Links

By default the chat prevents you from submitting messages containing HTML

tags. However if you want to send links simply write the full URL, e.g.

http://www.server.com/ or https://secure.com/page/. The URLs will be

automatically converted to hyperlinks.

Controls

There several buttons at the bottom of the chat window:

CLEAR - clears the chat window;

NICKNAME - allows you to change your nickname;

OPTIONS - sets session options: 1.SET FOCUS ON NEW MSG - when checked every time a message is displayed the chat window is brought to the top; 2.I AM AWAY - when checked you are marked as being away from the computer; 3. SCROLL ON NEW MSG - when checked the chat window scrolls to the bottom when a new message is displayed. Some browsers (especially on Mac) do not interpret correctly the JavaScript scroll command and in that case it is useful to turn that option off.

IGNORE - gives you the option to ignore (not see) the messages from the selected users.

WHO'S IN - displays all users in the public rooms;

MSG BOX - enables you to create a personal message box and to leave messages to a user who have visited the chat. The messages are saved on the server and will be seen by the user the next time they enters the chat, no matter if they log with a different Nickname. This function requires cookies to be enabled.

LOG OFF - logs you off from the current room;

HELP - displays this help;

CLOSE - loges you off and closes the chat window;