Hi Jim,

>Nick, in another thread, just told me that "Chat" can happen anytime. Is there some difference between "Chat" and a "conference" (my WEB-challenged intuition comes to the fore again!)?

Nope

>Some are responding that they are 'willing to help' in getting one set up and going. What does doing so entail - I had thought that simply clicking on "Chat" was all that was needed??

Right, what "willing to help setup" entails is basically advertising. You can join a chat anytime, but there usually is nobdy in there. Why we setup these "confrences", is so people know that when they click on chat they won't be alone. Try clicking on "Next Confrence" at the top of the message board.

>It might be helpful if the UT had some way to "intrinsically" let anyone logged in know that there is action going on in "Chat". Some ideas for this could be:
>a) changing the Chat icon to a non-white background when one is underway;
>b) adding an icon bottom-left (with the 'new messages' and 'mail' icons), possibly even with a number indicating how many there;
>c) changing the background colour of the (large) upper-right area (the one with the message headers) to indicate activity in Chat.
>d) I'm sure there are even better ways.

Great Ideas, especially "B".