Intercom

Communication can take many forms and getting in touch with friends or colleagues over a Local Area Network is possible in several forms. In case video and text chat are not exactly what you need, if telephone or Internet connections are not available, but you still need to speak with someone, you might need an audio link to that person if they are on the same LAN.

A utility that was especially tailored for this purpose is Intercom and it comes with a very basic set of functions, neatly packed inside a plain but practical interface. All the commands are at hand and for a detailed explanation on each of them, there is a built-in help system.

The main window features an old-school speaker that has the volume slider just beneath it, so it is possible to adjust the loudness of the incoming audio transmission. In order to make yourself heard on the other end, all you have to do is press the big green button and speak into the microphone connected to your PC.

Choosing the person to talk to can be easily done if you press the 'S' that will activate the connection target selection window where all the connected users are shown. The indicator LED that is placed in the lower part of Intercom will turn green when the talk button is pressed.

A neat feature of this program is the ability to lock the main button and allow you to speak without having to keep the mouse button down. Activating this is done by pressing the 'L' in the main window. In order to cut the microphone when you are done simply hit the talk button again.

All things considered, this software solution can be quite useful, once you get it to work and this can be a difficult task, as it depends a lot on the network capabilities, port availability and other factors that may make it difficult to work with.