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eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
28,698
26,712
Got into a discussion this morning with people at work and realized that I have never ever posted this here. I might have mentioned it once or twice, but now I'll just bring it up.

14.5 years ago I started this job I have and quickly realized that the company needed a way to communicate without having to get up and walk away from our desks.

Now, understand that back in 2004 I was five years away from my first social media account. IM was a new thing to me and my requirement was to have an app that did not force me to create third party accounts. I knew this was possible because when I worked at the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, CA we could message each other. And that was a cross platform Microsoft based deal that IT had set up that worked in OS9.

So. I found IP Messenger: http://ishwt.net/en/software/ipmsg/

IP Messenger allows you to create your own network ID. It sits in your menubar and you click on it when you want to send someone else on the network (who also has to be running IP Messenger) a message.

It's got some away functionality and you can also send files using the app.

It also works on Windows: https://ipmsg.org/en/

And, hell if you've got an iDevice: http://miwa.offside.ne.jp/ipmsg/index.html.en

There is no requirement to create any kind of account. It just uses the network. On the PCs here in the shop I have it as a startup item so no one has to worry about starting it. It works on XP, Win7 and on up to Win10. I've never had any issues with it. It will ask to make it's own Firewall rules.

Again, I know IM isn't much of a thing anymore, but if you do happen to need a cross-platform messaging system IP Messenger has worked flawlessly for me for the last 14 and a half years.
 

Raging Dufus

macrumors 6502a
Aug 2, 2018
614
1,126
Kansas USA
I love stuff like this, thanks! They've been rocking this code since Jaguar and they still make it available and workable, even cross-platform...awesome.

I could actually use this at home. We recently purchased a >100-year-old house with creaky wood floors that are just completely impractical to fix (sooner or late we'll replace at least some of them, but anyway) and so noisy to walk on that we've learned not to even try to have a discussion with each other from different parts of the house, while anyone is walking around. On top of that, my wife wants to move her office to a room on the 2nd floor, while I have my office in the basement. So, not only will we be separated by two floors, it's nothing but creaky floors/stairs in between. This makes routine conversation a troublesome thing.

Somehow it seems less silly to me, to be able to IP-message her over our LAN, rather than sending text messages back and forth on our phones. It's the same thing accomplished a different way, but still...less silly.

Plus, I hate my smartphone, so win-win :D
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
28,698
26,712
I love stuff like this, thanks! They've been rocking this code since Jaguar and they still make it available and workable, even cross-platform...awesome.

I could actually use this at home. We recently purchased a >100-year-old house with creaky wood floors that are just completely impractical to fix (sooner or late we'll replace at least some of them, but anyway) and so noisy to walk on that we've learned not to even try to have a discussion with each other from different parts of the house, while anyone is walking around. On top of that, my wife wants to move her office to a room on the 2nd floor, while I have my office in the basement. So, not only will we be separated by two floors, it's nothing but creaky floors/stairs in between. This makes routine conversation a troublesome thing.

Somehow it seems less silly to me, to be able to IP-message her over our LAN, rather than sending text messages back and forth on our phones. It's the same thing accomplished a different way, but still...less silly.

Plus, I hate my smartphone, so win-win :D
Yeah, it's pretty cool. And the only requirement is setting it up to load when a PC or Mac starts. It has no launch screen so it just appears in your menubar or Start menu.

I had it set up once but getting my wife to use it was the thing. She's on her phone most of the time so she just iMessages me. Had I known at the time that this was available for the iPhone I'd have installed it for her. But I suspect the same issue would have occurred. Getting her to switch from the Messages app to IP Messenger just to send a message in house probably would not have stuck.

Ah, well. At work this has been a solid thing for everyone. Everybody uses it and it's just taken for granted, which is good because it means it's become part of everyones workflow.

Glad you can find a use for it.
 

pochopsp

macrumors 6502
Apr 6, 2016
429
308
Napoli, city of sun and pizza!
If I understood correctly, it is an instant messaging app for devices connected on the same network. But, is there any cross platform im app still around for powerpc macs, like iChat or similar?
 

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
28,698
26,712
If I understood correctly, it is an instant messaging app for devices connected on the same network. But, is there any cross platform im app still around for powerpc macs, like iChat or similar?
I don't know about the latter. But IP Messenger will work on systems as far back as Panther.
 

dbdjre0143

macrumors 6502
Nov 11, 2017
361
382
West Virginia
If I understood correctly, it is an instant messaging app for devices connected on the same network. But, is there any cross platform im app still around for powerpc macs, like iChat or similar?
I still use iChat on Leopard on my Powerbook. You can add a GMail account in iChat, and I then use it as a substitute for the IM feature of Google Hangouts. It is essentially a Jabber-client, so any service that will work in such manner should still work with iChat.
 
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bobesch

macrumors 68020
Oct 21, 2015
2,124
2,195
Kiel, Germany
Great stuff - thanks for sharing!!!
Communication does also work neatless and fast through the VPN-tunnel from home (MacBookPro/ElCap) to office's mixed-PC/Mac environment (WinServer/WinClients/white intel-iMacs /w Lion).
 
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