SnapTalk 5.1.2

The internet is great for accessing information on a myriad of topics. It is also great if you want to stay in touch with family, friends, and people you care about. There are social networking sites out there that let you stay up to date on what your friends are doing (like Facebook). There are VoIP clients that let you talk with your friends (like Skype). And there are instant messaging applications that let you communicate with your friends (like Yahoo! Messenger).

Putting the focus in instant messaging applications, they depend on an internet connection to work. No internet, no ability to communicate with others. This is a bummer. Say you are on a local network and there are several computers on that network – you could still communicate with the people on that network as long as you had an instant messaging application that doesn’t depend on the web.

Look no more, that application is the Glass Bead Software-developed SnapTalk. With this application you can talk with other computer users on your local network. Furthermore, you can send files and receive files from other users.

Let’s say you talked to someone with SnapTalk and you no longer remember what that person said. You need not sweat it as SnapTalk comes with an archiving feature. All your conversations are neatly archived; when you need to access them, SnapTalk provides a handy search feature.

The feature I found most amusing is this one: with a single mouse click you can reply with a customizable “SnapBack”. Create a SnapBack and you can easily reply to incoming IMs.

Founded back in 1990 by Eric Harris-Braun and Dr. Adam King, Glass Bead Software is a company that specializes in developing “exceptional, cost-effective, cross-platform communication tools for the small to medium sized office.” That is precisely what SnapTalk is – a reasonably priced, properly good application that lets you communicate with others.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Conversation archiving
• Works on a local network, doesn’t need access to the web
• Very long free trial period

Cons

• Free to use only during the 50-day trial period

SnapTalk has been reviewed by George Norman on 12 May 2010. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft has rated SnapTalk 4 out of 5 stars, naming it Excellent