The Win Wall thing

[John Esak]

Mark,

We use(d to) FineLine Message Manager. I say used to, because six or eight
months ago I switched to webmail. However, we still use a few features of
the FL thing. One of which is a Broadcast option that is very cool. It
allows anyone on the network, either character-based in Unix (SCO,LInux,AIX)
or Windows GUI to call up a browse of every user on the system (defined by
parameters you choose... in other words we include several WAN sites across
the country) and from this browse, they can choose ALL or just some or one
user to send a Broadcast message to.  (God, that was a well constructed
sentence, huh? :-)  This is a neat and very useful tool, but even so, we
have probably only used it a couple/few times a year.  As for another
feature built into FL, it's called Intercom and it is similar to the
Broadcast thing in that both character-based and GUI sides can use it... but
from this brows you select a user and go into a full two-directional text
chat with them... (should they elect to answer your call... like any ICQ
type thing).  It is a very neat function and we _do_ use this quite often,
many times a day.

So, if that is helpful to you, I don't know... because it is not a free or
even inexpensive program.  As for any of this, it almost all has become
passé since we now have company wide full voice/text/browser rooms like the
FP Room. It's not wall... and it doesn't do character-based stuff... but it
has everyone knowing what's going on pretty quickly.... since you can just
say "We are shutting down in 5 minutes!!!! Tell anyone who isn't logged into
the room!"  :-)  Yes, I know it is nothing like it at all... but one
important benefit above wall is that it is audible and the user does not
have to be looking at their screen... they can even be working in some other
part of their office and hear the announcements.

John