Anyone recommend a "user is now online" software for my pc?

[Unit72]

So I had this networking software called Network Magic. I used it to share files between all our computers in our home but I mostly used it as a sort of who is online at the moment thing. It had a picture of a router and all the devices using it and it would tell me which device is online and which is off. A little window/sound cue would also activate whenever someone turned their pc on. Id like something of this nature. Network magic has stopped supporting it so I can no longer install it on my system.

Anyone use any kind of software that does this kind of thing? My connection isn't the best so its impossible to say play a moba or mmo of any kind without knowing first who is online in my network to see if they will lag me down. Bonus points if it also allows me to share files between pc's that was super useful. I mostly need it for the easy to understand who is online thing though.

 

[DoPo]

There is Fing [http://www.overlooksoft.com/download] but I've never actually used it on a PC. I've got it on my phone and it can detect other machines on the network alright, only it doesn't do it automatically. I assume the PC version is more functional than something designed to fit your hand, though. I suppose you can give it a go and uninstall it if it doesn't work as you want.

 

[Frezzato]

You could just install some sort of free chat program like Yahoo Messenger, create profiles for each PC, and then set up each client to start up on start-up. Then set preferences to enable alert sounds and display a dialog box whenever somebody goes online. Plus you would have the friends list showing who is/isn't online.

That would require setting up a new Yahoo account for each PC though. Plus, I don't know how much you trust Yahoo.

I guess you could do the same with Skype as well, but it's still the same amount of setup work.