TheWire is a tool for microblogging, this allows you to mention what you're doing at that moment. Great example of that are:
"Trying to add icons to a vba treeview control. So far works by adding an .ico file directly, not yet by using an icon embeded in a dll."
"Working today on preparing talks and demos for the #ezconference together with @bm."
You can add messages at the home page, or any other page if you are logged in. There are a couple of additional features. The first of them is tagging. If you include a word with a # sign before, TheWire will automatically add a tag to the message. In Bårds message above, "#ezconference" is converted into a tag as you can see here: http://{$installDomain}/update/239
Tags should be used to give your message one of more categories. Those could be #ezc (eZ Components), #ezp (eZ Publish), #marketing, #ezconference, #fun, #bbq, or whatever you want. Tags can later be used to filter out specific content - something that is extra important for the jabber integration (more follows on that in a bit). Tags can only contain the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and -, and have to start with a letter. You can very easily see all updates for a tag by going to f.e. http://{$installDomain}/tag/ezconference.
Another convention is that if you talk about people you can use the @ sign. A message with the text "@dr" will automatically add a link to that person's updates, as you can see in http://{$installDomain}/update/240 where @kn links to a list with all of Kore's updates (none right now though). As example see http://{$installDomain}/person/pb.
Normal links are converted automatically to short links, just like tinyurl.com does that. This is because the length of messages is restricted to 250 characters.
Links are automatically created to the public issue tracker by using "issue #12345" or "bug #12345" (without quotes). They will link to {$bugLinkFormat}.
There are a few other pages with information:
Another thing is jabber integration. When you register the mail contains instructions on how to get TheWire added to your jabber account (see below). This allows you to receive updates through jabber (when you've turned it on in the preferences, and your client is not marked as Do Not Disturb). It also allows you to send updates on what you're doing to jabber. Just send a message to the "{$jabberUser}" user. If for some moment you don't want it to send you updates, you can write "shut up" or "stop" to that user. To enable updates again, you can use "start".
You don't need VPN to access it, but you do need an account. You can register for an account by going to http://{$installDomain}/register. Fill in all the information, and click "Register". A password will be generated and mailed to your account. In this same mail you can also find instructions on how to get jabber integration working. Let me know if you have problems.
In order to make jabber integration work, please follow the following procedure: