On 3/1/2011 1:08 PM, John R Pierce wrote: > On 03/01/11 10:59 AM, Brunner, Brian T. wrote: >> Not today. My kids are all "modern, computer-savvy teens" (understand >> "teens" starts at about age 11 and lasts until about age 35). They can >> Facebook *all* *day* but cannot compose an email to save their lives. >> >> I'll have to look into jabber. > > jabber is a IM client > > seems like what you want is more like a webpage with 'news items' on it, > perhaps a blog like S9Y or Wordpress, and a web browser window > displaying the current page on the desktop, maybe that auto refreshes > hourly or something. A jabber (xmpp) group conference would probably work with basically instant notification and a display of the last screen at startup. I've used the Openfire server (java, uses postgresql for logins and to log data)and the spark client in a somewhat similar scenario with OpenNMS sending alarm notifications to the group because it is less annoying than email. Not sure if you can make a client start automatically in a group conference, though. It might work to just use google talk since you used that as your example of what you wanted but I don't think they have a way to make permanent groups. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com