They say that more and more employees are starting to work from home, but then the only access we have to our work colleagues is through email, personal instant messengers and the phone. Problem is that many projects now rely on multiple users, situated in different timezones, sharing the same files and with different operating systems. There aren't too many chat clients that you can use between both your colleagues and temporary people who are contributing to a project.

Propane is a Mac tool that uses the Campfire network within a desktop client. Campfire is a chat system that you can use privately, within your company, to enable colleagues to chat, share files and track projects. Problem is that Campfire is a web-only project and you won't want to keep opening your browser to chat to other users. Step up Propane which brings these features within a desktop client. Ideal, although it would be far better if the author had produced a cross-platform version, perhaps using Adobe Air?

Propane for Mac link.

26 Feb 2009