I use the following code in .emacs with Emacs ERC to get notified using notify-send whenever anyone pings me on IRC:

~~~~ {.lisp} (defun erc-global-notify (matched-type nick msg) (interactive) (when (eq matched-type ’current-nick) (shell-command (concat “notify-send -t 8000 -c "im.received" "” (car (split-string nick “!”)) " mentioned your nick" "" msg “"”)))) (add-hook ’erc-text-matched-hook ’erc-global-notify) ~~~~