Messaging system??

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Kalvaer

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My dad has asked me to set up an internal messaging system at work for them to use.

Its main use will be to relay telephone messages. ie: "While you were out X phoned. blah blah." Pretty much a simple internal email system, that stores messages when the recepients PC is off and notifies them of an incoming message when they return or were on a call. Also message storage so they cant turn around and give the usual, but I never got the message, since the sender will have proof?

I've been looking at sourceforge and there are just hundreds to choose from. Do any of you have any advice?

Oh yes, and it needs to be windows based
 
Does it matter if it uses International Bandwidth?

Or must this be for local LAN traffic only?

You used to get a program called WinPopUp in Windows Me and before....

http://www.wegabyte.com/winpopup/

you can still get it from that page!

The XP alternative is called WinChat...

just hit the start menu... Run... and type in WinChat.exe
 
Trying to go through local only and something that they dont just close down all the time and forget. The worse part is the message storage.

I've found a few nice office management tools, though most run online again using web based interfaces. Opengoo looks decent, though not to sure I can set up the server required (or to lazy too )
 
Last edited:
I would say any jabber based server since XMPP is becoming a standard for IM but for phone integration, perhaps look into Asterisk?
 
Here's an alternative to maybe consider: TinyTalk
"TinyTalk" is like a tiny internet phone, or intercom system. For direct IP to IP voice communication. It's a quick effective way to talk to other pc's users over your local network, or the internet.

Features and Details:
• Very tiny single exe streams 8 bit PCM voice data at 11.025KB/s in Full Duplex operation.
• Automatic Silence Detection; audio transmission will pause after 3 seconds of silence occurs.
• Hold to Talk, and Toggle to talk keys allow easy control over possible feedback conditions.
• Single TCP port operation, the port is user configurable.
• Docks to system tray for easy background running operation.
• Automatically stores IP's of connected and Received connections.
• Send and Receive audio level meters for visual monitoring.
• -m switch will minimize the application to the system tray on startup.

Compatability:
Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Up. (not tested on Win98)
Click to expand...
 
Garyvdh said:
Does it matter if it uses International Bandwidth?

Or must this be for local LAN traffic only?

You used to get a program called WinPopUp in Windows Me and before....

http://www.wegabyte.com/winpopup/

you can still get it from that page!

The XP alternative is called WinChat...

just hit the start menu... Run... and type in WinChat.exe
Click to expand...

I remember that working quite well back in the day before DSL
 
For your requirements listed I think some suggestions may be overkill. ( asterisk?)

We had the need for the same IM over Lan and I can say the following apps worked great for us for years:
LanChat Enterprise: http://www.kgysoft.com/index.html
BorgChat :http://borgchat.softnews.ro/news.php

Lanchat was a solid program, but you gotta pay.
Borgchat is free, but it was a little buggy on one pc only and would bomb out, but I see fixes have been released since then , so hopefully it's worth it. Other than that it did bring around a bit of laughter in the office due to the funny emoticons you use to get your point across. The pile of turd icon comes to mind...:D
Hope that helps
 
Thanks all.

I'll give them all a try and look through tomorrow. Installed PHP on the IIS server before I came home this evening to try out opengoo. So I should have some fun in the morning setting it up
 
Go look at Openfire
www.igniterealtime.com
It requires that you install a little server on a windows box, but it's small and lightweight. I use it in about 70% of my clients

It has Asterisk integration.

it's unlikely that any traditional phone system would support something like this. The PABX guys love their proprietary.
 
Well got IIS, PHP installed and configured group-office. Opengookept on giving me errors.

But I think its to complicated for what they want. Going to try out all the other suggestiongs now
 
Trying some of them now. They all seem work pretty well. My only problem so far is sending messages to somebody who's PC is off.

Still downloading though and checking up.
 
Kalvaer said:
Trying some of them now. They all seem work pretty well. My only problem so far is sending messages to somebody who's PC is off.

Still downloading though and checking up.
Click to expand...

Both Skype and MSN Messenger will deliver messages when a user logs in again and they both keep logs of sent messages. But they use international bandwidth and the chance of abuse is possible.
 
Ayup and thats what I am trying to avoid. Currently they already have a problem with people spending all day playing MSN games. Trying to see if I can shut all of that down
 
Also just installed the demo version of CMAIL Server for them and I am very impressed. The demo version supports 5 users so I will have to buy it. But the setup took 5 min and all the PC now bypass the internet when sending mail to others in the office and it downloads all the mail from my ISP and stores it for when they check their mail.
 
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