Team Speak

O.K. I haven't been playing games online much in the past, so I'm pretty new at it. I started playing DC back in October, then had a video card problem which was finally replaced a couple of days ago. Now I can play online, and my wife bought me a head set w/mic for christmas. I have installed Team Speak, but I have no idea how to use it. Can anybody give me the basics? Somebody online asked me if I could go on IRC. Is that the same thing?
This online gaming is a lot different than Liesure Suit Larry ( you old timers will know what I mean ).
Help an old guy out.

<edit>
A couple of more questions:
How do I know if this headset is working? Can I test it? And where exactly do I plug the head phone jack in on my mobo (in the sig). I do not have a sound card, just onboard sound. I found a second jack next to the speaker jack that appears to be labled the same, so I plugged in there.

I use to play with TS whenever I logged onto PS. You'll get alot of enjoyment out of it. I was a newbie at first too and I'm still am, but I'll still try to give some advice.

To figure out if your mic is working, just use the sound recorder if you have winxp. Should be under the Accessories > Entertainment on the start menu deal. Just open it up, click record and talk into the mic. You can record 60 seconds of making fun of yourself, like I did. If it's not working, make sure you got line in unmuted and not disabled under the sounds options I think (Or was it the microphone option one?).

As for where the jack goes, I put it in a green slot (memory kinda fuzzy here since I haven't used it in 2 months) and put the headphones in the other jack. Took a few minutes of swaping wires around, but it wasn't hard at all. Just trial and error.

Feel free to kill me if I have gotten any of the error correct.

Ventriilo is 100% better

The voice quality sounds like you are talking to the persons on the phone. As a team, we tried it, and it sucked up mager CPU power. We were dropped a lot so on.

Thanks guys. I think I have it figured out now.