1. The first step, of course, is to connect to the Ascends network - /server irc.ascends.net is the command to do this in mIRC.
2. Once you’re connected, change to your nickname.  If your nickname was mr_t, you would use the command /nick mr_t to change to that nickname.
3. Register your nickname with nickserv.  The command to do this is /msg nickserv register password email, with password being the password you want to use to identify, and email being your email address.
4. If you want your email address hidden when people look up information about you, you can use /msg nickserv set hide email on to hide your email address.
5. To make sure that other people can’t use your registered nickname, you need to set ‘kill protection’ on.  This means that if someone changes to your nickname, they will have one minute to identify (using your password) or they will have their nickname changed automatically.  To set kill protection on, use /msg nickserv set kill on Note: if you turn kill protection on, you will need to identify with nickserv every time you connect to Ascends.  The command to identify is /msg nickserv identify password, with password being the password you used when you registered.

Now your nickname will be totally protected from impersonators.  There is a lot more nickserv can do.  To find out more, use the command /msg nickserv help.  In mIRC, nickserv’s responses will be shown in the status window.