diff --git a/examples/misc/wall.perl b/examples/misc/wall.perl
index fc3dc2e2c05..9303658ce14 100644
--- a/examples/misc/wall.perl
+++ b/examples/misc/wall.perl
@@ -6,40 +6,64 @@
 #@(#) ...using "smbclient -M" message to winpopup service.
 #@(#) Default usage is to message every connected PC.
 #@(#) Alternate usage is to message every pc on the argument list.
-#@(#)	Hacked up by Keith Farrar <farrar@parc.xerox.com>
+#@(#)  Hacked up by Keith Farrar <farrar@parc.xerox.com>
 #
+# Cleanup and corrections by
+# Michal Jaegermann <michal@ellpspace.math.ualberta.ca>
+# Message to send can be now also fed (quietly) from stdin; a pipe will do.
 #=============================================================================
+
 $smbstatus = "/usr/local/bin/smbstatus";
-$smbclient = "/usr/local/bin/smbclient";
+$smbshout = "/usr/local/bin/smbclient -M";
 
-print STDOUT "\nEnter message for Samba clients of this host\n";
-print STDOUT "(terminated with single '.' or end of file):\n";
-
-while ( <STDIN> ) {
-	/^\.$/ && last;
-	push(@message,  $_);
+if (@ARGV) {
+    @clients = @ARGV;
+    undef @ARGV;
+}
+else {  # no clients specified explicitly
+    open(PCLIST, "$smbstatus |") || die "$smbstatus failed!.\n$!\n";
+    while(<PCLIST>) {
+	last if /^Locked files:/;
+	split(' ', $_, 6);
+        # do not accept this line if less then six fields
+        next unless $_[5];
+        # if you have A LOT of clients you may speed things up by
+        # checking pid - no need to look further if this pid was already
+        # seen;  left as an exercise :-)
+        $client = $_[4];
+	next unless $client =~ /^\w+\./;       # expect 'dot' in a client name
+	next if grep($_ eq $client, @clients); # we want this name once
+	push(@clients, $client);
+    }
+    close(PCLIST);
 }
 
-if ( $ARGV[0] ne "" ) {
-	$debug && print STDOUT "Was given args: \n\t @ARGV\n";
-	foreach $client ( @ARGV ) {
-		$pcclient{$client} = $client;
-	}
-} else {
-	open( PCLIST, "$smbstatus | /bin/awk '/^[a-z]/ {print $5}' | /bin/sort | /bin/uniq|");
-	while ( <PCLIST> ) {
-		/^[a-z]+[a-z0-9A-Z-_]+.+/ || next;
-		($share, $user, $group, $pid, $client, @junk) = split;
-		$pcclient{$client} = $client;
-	}
-	close(PCLIST);
+if (-t) {
+    print <<'EOT';
+
+Enter message for Samba clients of this host
+(terminated with single '.' or end of file):
+EOT
+
+    while (<>) {
+	last if /^\.$/;
+	push(@message, $_);
+    }
+}
+else { # keep quiet and read message from stdin
+    @message = <>;
 }
 
-foreach $pc ( keys(%pcclient) ) {
-	print STDOUT "Sending message ";
-	$debug && print STDOUT " <@message> \n";
-	print STDOUT "To <$pc>\n";
-	open(SENDMSG,"|$smbclient -M $pc") || next;
+foreach(@clients) {
+##    print "To $_:\n";
+    if (open(SENDMSG,"|$smbshout $_")) {
 	print SENDMSG @message;
 	close(SENDMSG);
+    }
+    else {
+	warn "Cannot notify $_ with $smbshout:\n$!\n";
+    }
 }
+
+exit 0;
+