looking at a few of these.
On the chatroom, the easiest way is to use a shoutbox that is already implemented with the portal (the thing that does the side blocks, panels etc). I have multiple chatrooms on my site (its a cycling site - we have a different chat for each race that is going on)
the downside is, this site uses EzPortal which i havnt looked into a great deal, I use SimplePortal which I know my way around like the back of my hand.
I see that the boss has implemented a chat of sorts, although it seems a little random as to who is available and who isnt. :S There are other options if needed.