[wizinoz]

Hi...we are a small company with 5 PC's in a simple LAN. We can share files and printers, but we need a program that will do the following:

• allow any user to add a note or thread to an ongoing collection
• allow any user to read all previous entries or "posts"
• allow any user to respond to previous posts
• allow a person (administrator?) to delete obsolete posts
• run on our LAN, NOT the Internet

I have had suggestions of NetMeeting and Outlook add-ons. Any suggestions? Would like to keep it as simple as possible, our users are not computer geeks...just secretaries and dispatchers.

Thanks in advance for your

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well what your describing is a "forum" like this one. there are various ones you could setup internally to use. PHPnuke is an excellent choice. The admin would have to become familiar with it enough to install it, but there are some great tools to aid in the installation process.

[starjax]

well what your describing is a "forum" like this one. there are various ones you could setup internally to use. PHPnuke is an excellent choice. The admin would have to become familiar with it enough to install it, but there are some great tools to aid in the installation process.

[wizinoz]

Thanks, starjax. I checked out phpnuke as you suggested. Unfortunately, it, along with PHPbb (which someone else recommended), both want one or more of the following:

Linux, installed and working properly.

Apache Web Server.

PHP version 4.1.x or better (mod_php) Apache module.

MySQL database server


As I stated in my original post, we are a small company with NO server. Just a simple LAN of 5 PC's, all running Windows XP Pro. It looks like the above requirements for phpnuke would involve a server and some very sophisticated software (Apache Web Server? My SQL database server? PHP, whatever that is?) Also, I'm getting a feeling that this is web-related, and we really don't want to have to access the "forum" over the web.

Is there nothing out there that will let us add "posts" to a "forum", like we do here on Geeks to Go, without a trip out to the web each time? Maybe a tie-in to Outlook? (we're running Outlook 2000, by the way)

Thanks again, everybody.

the Wiz

[starjax]

first off you are confusing the "internet" with web bases services/appications. you don't have to place this on the "internet" just an office pc would be fine. On you local network wich we call the intranet.

the only outlook based functionality that I am familar with works in conjuction with exchange.

im going to post this to our other staff here and see if they know of any other alternatives.

thanks,
Starjax.

[peterm]

Hi Wizinoz
Why don't you look at using Excell for this? If you want to do what I think then that should work.
OR Word
Control a Microsoft Word document in an online meeting
The host controls the document when the meeting starts. The host can allow collaboration by the participants and can turn off collaboration at any time. When collaboration is turned on, any participant can control the document, but only one person at a time can have control. When collaboration is turned off, multiple users can work simultaneously in Chat or on the Whiteboard.

Control the document as the host
To turn on collaboration, click Allow others to edit on the Online Meeting toolbar.


To take back control of the document when collaboration is turned on, click anywhere in the document.


To turn off collaboration, click Allow others to edit again if you have control of the document, or press ESC if you don't have control of the document.
Control the document as a participant
To take control of a shared document the first time, double-click anywhere in the document. Thereafter, you can gain control of the document by clicking anywhere in the document.

Only the host of the meeting can use the Online Meeting toolbar. If you want more control of Microsoft NetMeeting features during an online meeting you must use the NetMeeting program directly by clicking Microsoft NetMeeting on the taskbar.

Note The initials of the person in control of the document appear next to the mouse pointer.

Is this the kind of thing you want?
Or you can save word as a web page save it on the computer you use as a server (any computer) and give eveyone the link, Then they just point to the link in their web browser

If you go to the help in word click on the Index tab and type in Use net meeting for an online meeting

Netmeeting 3 included in Windows® 2000!
Windows 2000 contains NetMeeting version 3. The Windows real-time collaboration and conferencing client is an easy-to-use Web phone, as well as a tool for corporate productivity. For Windows 98 systems and up to Windows 2000 the standalone version of Netmeeting is available for download.


Cheers
Peterm

Edited by peterm, 05 November 2005 - 04:44 PM.

[wizinoz]

First, thanks to peterm and starjax for their responses.

peterm, I like the idea of Whiteboard and Net Meeting, but I'm thinking these would both require too much "hands on" by a moderator...someone to invite folks to join a meeting, for example. While I haven't ruled this out, I was kinda hoping for an ongoing thing where a user could log into a forum, read what others had written, and log back out...then do it again later without having to be re-invited to join.

starjax...could I run phpnuke on one of the users' PCs and set it up to let everybody in the building access it?
I downloaded a "suite" of programs from the phpnule site that include: MySQL, Apache Server, and some others. I don't want to bog down a user by having a bunch of processor and RAM-intensive programs running on their PC. Would I be better off with a dedicated PC on the LAN to run all the big programs (including, of course, phpnuke)? And are you familiar enough with 'nuke to know if I could do this without accessing the Internet? In other words, keep it "in-house", only accessible by users on the LAN?

If either of you have any more info or suggestions you'd like to share...or if anybody else has any enlightening ideas, please feel free to email me at: removed email for users protection

Thanks, everybody...keep up the good work!!

[peterm]

A very basic thing I did before was save a word document as HTML
then everyone could access it through their internet browser but it kept it in doors ( not the internet). To make it even easier I put a short cut to the link on all the desktops.
Also if you go in to tools on word and click on track changes > highlight changes>options you can track via author and underline etc.
I set this up in a folder on 1 drive then shared the folder and gave access to everyone.

We prefer not to email direct to people. If we keep it in the forum then other people can also learn.

Cheers
Peterm

Edited by peterm, 16 November 2005 - 03:30 AM.