Hey Guest!
Hey - did you know if you click on the title of a thread it will take you to the first unread post since you last visited that thread?
but were afraid to ask: 
STOP!! Never post your email address in open forums. Bots can "harvest" your email! If you must share your email use a Private Message or use the 
smilie in place of the real @
Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
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Another boring computer tech question:
Does anyone know of a peer to peer messaging system? Something that doesn't require commercial network tentacles (like AOL, MSN, etc.)
At the air museum library, I have one volunteer working on a downstairs WinXP machine, cataloguing. Upstairs I have a volunteer working on a similar machine, doing accessions. Both are on the LAN.
Both people are "over 60" (like me) and have trouble with stairs. There's no telephone on the second floor, so they need to walk up and down stairs to ask each other a question.
The 120v wireless intercoms I've found require the two units to share a single electrical circuit. They don't use radio or LAN connections.
I tried walkie-talkie type devices, but they run on batteries, have to be switched on and off separately from the computer, and are sensitive to external radio interference. And often very garbled.
Using email is moot; unless you keep the email window open, you don't know there's a new message.
The ideal: a background app that allows peer to peer notification (flashing icon, beep, etc.), and text messaging.
I don't want the hassle of mics and speakers, or the overkill of something like AOL instant messaging. (Especially the possibility that the user is visible on the entire AOL system, for example, and starts getting "friend requests" from who knows where.)
Any suggestions? Is there a "Windows Messaging" that doesn't require a separate login and password, etc.?
Thanks.
Tom
Does anyone know of a peer to peer messaging system? Something that doesn't require commercial network tentacles (like AOL, MSN, etc.)
At the air museum library, I have one volunteer working on a downstairs WinXP machine, cataloguing. Upstairs I have a volunteer working on a similar machine, doing accessions. Both are on the LAN.
Both people are "over 60" (like me) and have trouble with stairs. There's no telephone on the second floor, so they need to walk up and down stairs to ask each other a question.
The 120v wireless intercoms I've found require the two units to share a single electrical circuit. They don't use radio or LAN connections.
I tried walkie-talkie type devices, but they run on batteries, have to be switched on and off separately from the computer, and are sensitive to external radio interference. And often very garbled.
Using email is moot; unless you keep the email window open, you don't know there's a new message.
The ideal: a background app that allows peer to peer notification (flashing icon, beep, etc.), and text messaging.
I don't want the hassle of mics and speakers, or the overkill of something like AOL instant messaging. (Especially the possibility that the user is visible on the entire AOL system, for example, and starts getting "friend requests" from who knows where.)
Any suggestions? Is there a "Windows Messaging" that doesn't require a separate login and password, etc.?
Thanks.
Tom
