Can any of you guys recommend a system alert system for PC's. I work in an office and we have some less than desireable visitors at times unfortunately staff member are out of view due to screens which can make us a bit vulnerable. I am looking to adopt some kind of system which links to all pc's on the staff network that on the press of a button will show up on all staff screens allowing myself and others to respond to potential disturbances. I currently rely on if I hear anythin or if someone tells me. Neither being the best case.

I am aware that you can have alerts via outlook but these are not really that effective I am looking for something that comes up as a full screen alert on the press of 1 key

Any help appreciated

In college we used to use 'net send' dos messages to other people, we found it hilarious to be able to type something in a dos box to have the word 'knob' pop up on another persons machine...

However, childish goings-on aside, the net send function could be tied to a keyboard macro and do what you want. I don't remember them being full screen, but certainly the messages appeared on top of all other windows and were impossible to ignore.

Here's an example of it's use, including the command to send a message to 'everyone';

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071205222644AAcBm5f

'msg' is an updated version that might be more effective on Vista onwards.

Use the "net send" command carefully....

Almost 20 years ago I worked as a dealing floor support engineer for a bank in the city with approx 1000 users. New to me (and my studies) was the net send command - I'd just read about it that morning on the train.
So, I decided to try it out and sent a message to my friend with the command from the book plus some artistic license;

net send "Ha ha Dave, You are a knob!!" /everyone

Needless to say, the whole dealing floor bleep'd in a "mexican bleep" as the command circulated across the network and there was complete uproar from all the dealing floor staff. That's what the /everyone switch does.

I too got the screen popup so I was the first one to shout out "What idiot has done this"

I learn't very quickly that day that the best form of defense was attack !

Haha brilliant

quote:

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Originally posted by Barkalarr
Use the "net send" command carefully....

Almost 20 years ago I worked as a dealing floor support engineer for a bank in the city with approx 1000 users. New to me (and my studies) was the net send command - I'd just read about it that morning on the train.
So, I decided to try it out and sent a message to my friend with the command from the book plus some artistic license;

net send "Ha ha Dave, You are a knob!!" /everyone

Needless to say, the whole dealing floor bleep'd in a "mexican bleep" as the command circulated across the network and there was complete uproar from all the dealing floor staff. That's what the /everyone switch does.

I too got the screen popup so I was the first one to shout out "What idiot has done this"

I learn't very quickly that day that the best form of defense was attack !

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So it wasn't just me then that used to do that? LOL

Did a 80 computer net send in the Nott uni med school computer room back in 1994. "PING!". They used a dos based dmenu program to log you in before starting windows, I crashed out of that using a quick ctrl-C so the IT assistant just looked bemused at the desktops trying to work out why the menu system had suddenly sent "Doh!" to everyone. Hahahahaha the perfect crime!

Somehow all the computers going beep simultaneously is quite amusing. Almost as much as fun as our local Tescos where they have forty wind up egg kitchen timers for sale. Wind 'em up and walk away chuckling.

Im looking for a single keystroke that will message all computers on the network to warn of trouble is press ESC message sent XXXXXX needs assistance

The type of work we do is face to face with customers who at time can become aggressive so the last thing we need are bells and alarms ringing this only heightens the aggression

Back in my Polytechic days we used terminals to minicomputers. It was very annoying when you'd set "message -defer" and people repeatedly used "message -force" to override it and splash a message across what you were working on. We wrote a short script so running "annoy xxxxxx" would run a background task sending repeated, forced messages to xxxxx saying "This is very annoying isn't it <Beep>", which we used against these people. Unfortunately one of the group used it without a destination, thus running it against the command console in the IT department! Next log on, he got a terse message and was automatically logged out again

net send is disabled on all up to date versions of windows...

A quick google for 'pc panic button' finds this:

http://www.littlegreenbutton.com/
(£100 for 50 users/year)

and this:
http://www.codegate.co.uk/safe
(£100 for a perpetual license)

I think they might do the job - can't find any free software ut it might be worth a more thorough look.