Chatting has turned from the casual talk without exchanging too much information into a real phenomenon. I can't imagine a computer that does not have installed one of the numerous chatting solutions available on the Internet. Chatting is a time waster and often leads to addiction. There have been recorded cases when the user would spend more then 8 hours a day chatting on the Internet in different rooms and God knows about what.

I for one see the good side of the chat clients and use it mostly for fast finding the needed information, sending files or links to different news articles. What's the use of having the possibility of learning a myriad of things if you don't grab that chance and instead waste it on trivial talks.

Companies are definitely against the use of chat clients by the employees and a new instrument for communicating between departments was needed. Vypress Chat is one of the oldest solutions I know and from the earlier versions up to now the developer did nothing but improve it with new features and adapting it to the contemporary needs of the users.

The price of the utility is $11. Being designed for SOHO (small office or home office) it provides another link between the employees and requires zero management requirements. One of the benefits of installing such a utility is team building as it is a known fact that people communicate easier via chat windows than face to face.

Putting that aside, the software is equipped with a highly manageable interface that allows the users almost all the possibilities of a public chat instrument: status (a bit minimal as you cannot set a message), emoticons, alerts, possibility of creating rooms/channels and talk to people in there, mass messaging etc.

As long as you have a network that functions properly, Vypress Chat needs no configuration whatsoever. The main window is split into several sections that include the chat window, menu bar, toolbar and channel panel. The default channel available after installing the application is called “#Main” and all the users will automatically join it. Vypress chatters can create as many channels as they want and this proves to be a good solution in an office environment as a channel for each department can be created.

Both channel, as well as private conversations, can be conducted by the user. Sending files to certain users is also possible and a very interesting feature is the creation of a HTTP server which allows sharing files between the users in the network the easy way (simply create a link to the file and send it; the receiver will simply download the file). There is no Internet connection required as LAN is the only condition for Vypress Chat to function.

Message filtration available allows you to set an action (minimize message to window, ignore message and send notification to sender, ignore in channels and ignore in private chat) whenever a certain user in the list is bothering you. The same filters can be applied whenever certain words appear in main chat or in private message window and IP filtration is also available. Mass messages handling option includes three options: treating it as a private message, minimize the message window or block all masses except those from favorite users.

The Bulletin Board feature allows the user posting announcements for all the users in the LAN and using Vypress Chat to see. Everybody can post in here with absolutely no restrictions. The bulletins can be collapsed and only their title will be available or expanded and all the content will be displayed. New Post window looks similar to an e-mail window. Highly flexible, the post window supports such elements as inserting pictures, creating links, font and text formatting, spell check, indentation options. The posts can be set to expire on a certain day at a user specified time.

The program customization window allows users to configure Vypress Chat's interface (behavior of close button, timestamp events, popup window, appearance (enabling emoticons in messages), availability status mode setting, private messages handling and system messages), sounds, colors, logging of the messages (archiving), board and special features. Sounds can be changed to whatever the user finds on the computer, provided the files are in WAV format.

Despite the ease of use, the intuitive interface and the abundance of features and options the software has several drawbacks, like the impossibility of leaving offline messages to the users. In fact, you can send messages only to the users that are currently online. When sending multiline messages, the Send shortcut is no longer Enter, but Ctrl+Enter.

The Good

Very useful chat utility to be used in a LAN. It works with no configuration whatsoever. Users in a network simply have to install the application and start talking.

The Bad

There is no way to leave an offline message unless using the board and that way everybody can see it.

The Truth

There are better softwares out there, but Vypress should not be overlooked.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: