Same, what are you trying to do..
I just use mIRC (www.mirc.com) on my laptop unless I'm playing retro games I will login to the web based chat rooms (www.morphie.co) or if I'm using my phone I'll use the Morphie - Chat Rooms app or irccloud. You could use irccloud.com also.
Anywho, depends on what you are trying to do.. Maybe just chat?
If you have a website and want a chat room on there let me know too!
Setting up a network, not really but it depends on how big you want it.
Client is how you connect to irc (You can find loads on google, I use irccloud.com a web based one)
And you join a network by getting a client then reading the docs to see how to add a network to your client.
You can use something like IRCcloud - join a channel on a network & it keeps you continuously connected (barring problems on the IRC server itself) so you can check in on it anytime and scroll back through past messages. Can be used from website or apps.
It looks like you are properly registered with nickserv. You will want to do the following command after you connect to the IRC server.
/msg nickserv identify <password>
Where <password>
is the password you originally set when registering with nickserv
Most clients have a way to automate the nickserv identify login process. Check the wiki/help from your clients website. I recommend https://irccloud.com for its ease of use, and ability to keep you logged in from any device.
Once you are identified with nickserv, then join #delta
/join #delta
For more help try
/msg nickserv help /msg nickserv help register /msg nickserv help identify
Also see our IRC wiki: http://www.reddit.com/r/deltaminecraft/wiki/irc
There are a number of services such as https://irccloud.com/ you will probably find to your liking, irc cloud being the most prevelant i've seen used; If your hard set on a local implementation there are a couple of options.
For windows mIRC is free and highly scriptable, you can also grab xchat but from what i remember the windows install is only a 30 day trial and your required to license it for use any time after (at least if you've not gone through the trouble of finding a cracked version)
For linux i would probably recommend tmux + irssi w/ bitlbee and a silc plugin such as penguin-breeder, or tmux + weechat w/ bitlbee, i've not tested any of the silc plugins for weechat would love some input if anyone has it; screen is a great terminal emulator but the only reason i would choose it over tmux is the session lock feature, yet the hash is generates is miniscule and any recent hardware would crack it in seconds <3
As for Macs my experience is somewhat limited
Hope this helps :)