Pop-ups in Browsers
 

Okay... here's a loaded question. :)

How can I create a pop-up window using a system's default browser based on a system message, or part of a script?

I realize that such knowledge can be used to malicious ends, so let me contextualize for a moment.

We have an internal network which is isolated from any DIRECT internet connection. A mail server connected to an A/B/C ethernet switch bounces between our intranet and the internet. What I would like to do is have a pop-up/browser window on either our intranet machines when emails are queued to leave the network, or on the internet research machines when qmail has incoming emails in it's queue.

I have bash scripts in place to push the emails to the 'other' network depending on what network the mail server can successfully ping, is there a way to safely push a message to the default browser of a machine (windows or Linux) based on queue status without leaving the machines (specifically the windows based internet workstations) open to abuse?

Obviously I know the syntax for my various mail apps for queue checking, but if I can avoid setting up an Apache server just to push one of two phrases I'd like to. Is there a way to invoke a browser to load and display a text file, and then be forced to refresh every couple of minutes if an instance of the text file is already in memory?

Perhaps this is pure fantasy, but I thought I'd throw it out into the intellectual ether for comment. Please let me know if I'm unclear. I often am. ;-P

Thanks in advance,
Sam

What desktop system are you using?

The Desktops are Windows, the Server is Linux, but I'd prefer to have a means that is cross-platform as we are toying with the idea of going all Linux based in the future.

Unfortunately, I don't know any java, php, perl, or python.

Sam

I don't think theres a easy way ( or perhaps anyway ) to do this across platforms, or even from desktop to desktop.

You'd have to know what to tell the machine to launch, you might be able to do it for a paticular Browser ( Say launching Firefox with a URL to read ) but not for whatever the default is on the system.