Thursday, November 16, 2006

Local IM Client

We all know that communication is very important. Without any communication, there won't be any civilization like nowadays. In virtual world, communication can be done also, via email or IM client. Some of the most popular IM client are YM, MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, GTalk, Gaim, and many more. All of them requires an Internet connection. Even if we are in the same building, sometimes we also use this IM Client to communicate with our colleagues.

Now what will happen if the ISP is having some problems so that the Internet connection is down? We can't use that kind of IM client any longer, since there's no route to the servers. The solution is to use a local IM client. One of the simple one is YaK!. Taken from YaK!'s website:
Yak! is a text-based, chat application for use on Microsoft Windows 32-bit local area networks. It has a simple and easy to use interface, does not require a dedicated server and makes communicating across a LAN a dream

It doesn't have so much features compared to other IM client, but i think it's very sufficient for basic chat and also file transfer. You can look all of YaK!'s features here. Unfortunately, YaK! is not a freeware, but it's not time limited software, so you can use it as long as you like, but with a simple annonying message dialog (a reminder to purchase the application) when you minimized the application and want to restore it again (you will have to wait for 8 seconds). It also have little and simple smileys compared to other client.

The other application which can be used is Akeni LAN Messenger. This application is multiplatform so that it can be installed on Linux platform also (not like YaK! which only works in Windows platform). Akeni LAN Messenger came in several version and this is a shareware application, meaning that it's limited to 30 days trial and after that you will have to buy the license to continue using it.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:02 AM

    I think people should try Jabber as a free standard for Instant Messenging. Jabber's standard is open so there are many client implementations on various OSes.

    The server is also freely available.

    GTalk uses Jabber.

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  2. But it requires Internet connection right? What i'm talking here is local IM client which doesn't need Internet connection.

    Maybe you can point me a Jabber implementation which doesn't use Internet connection?

    Thanks for sharing...

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  3. Anonymous1:47 PM

    You can install jabber on the intranet :)

    Or check these lan plugin of miranda

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  4. Anonymous1:52 PM

    Jabber has two major components,
    Jabber as the server & (tons) of Jabber client :)

    You can set the Jabber server in the local (LAN) server and use (from many flavor) of the Jabber client in every workstations.

    The major obstacle (from my own experience) is to get the people familiar with the Jabber client :P

    They always comments (read: complaining)
    in comparison it with the popular YahooMessenger or MSN Messenger client

    :)

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  5. Hm... never knew about it. Thanks to all for sharing it :D

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  6. Yes, people tends to compare every IM client with YM and/or MSN. But they will feel it usefull when they have unstable Internet connection. My colleagues are now enjoying YaK! for local chat since it can be used even without any Internet connection

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  7. Anonymous10:04 PM

    Using serverless messenger which is more approriate. JXTA based, or Erlang based (aha...) will provide a cross platform solution for your organization.

    Other solution is by using circle (serverless p2p)

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  8. I only need it for two people in a convention over ad-hoc wireless so YAK should do the trick for me- it occurs to me that the irony is that windows messenger thats spammy service that used to be on by default and pop up with porn messages all the time- that would be perfect for my use if it wasnt so terribly ruined

    ReplyDelete