Introducing DotNet Instant Messenger

Posted by Scott on 28. December 2008 21:38

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Friends of all ages:

I am proud to present to you DotNet Instant Messenger.  I have built for the open source community a new Instant Messaging client that works fully out of the browser.  The client is built with ASP.NET, C#, JavaScript and LINQ.

Why build a new instant messaging client?  Well, I decided that the current instant massangers were all proprietary or built in another language.  I wanted one strictly for ASP.NET.  The project in all took about 2 weeks of good old fashioned programming.  I had to learn a bit of JavaScript and Web services to get this job done, but it was fun.  I took the images from Ajax IM, I am not going to lie about that.  All the code is completely mine and built with my two hands.  I used Ajax IM’s database and enhanced it a little bit.

Taken by alicepopkorn

1. You must have the default ASP.NET membership schema already set up.
2. You will need to run IMQuery.sql on the database.
3. You must allow pop-ups for the Client to work – This is required so when a user starts a chat, the new window will open for the user on the receiving end.
4. Note: IM’s could take up to one minute.  When the buddy list and the chat box isn’t open, there are minute intervals on the browser which means it only checks for new messages once a minute.  When you have the Buddy List open, the interval is cut down to 5 seconds.

I have made this for the community and expect the community to hopefully give me some feedback.  I am fully into making this thing fully functional client if the community sees it as a good messenger. 

The project is available on Codeplex and at www.DotNetIM.com.  The Demo is located at www.DotNetIM.com. Go check it out and please leave me some feedback.

A Revolutionary way to take notes!

Posted by Scott on 14. October 2008 22:55

For the past few weeks I have been testing out a piece of software for note taking.  I found the software by luck trolling through www.stackoverflow.com.  The software is called Evernote.  It can do almost everything that is need to do when you need to take a quick note.  All the notes live in an online repository.  Without the repository being Google, I worried that the information might not be there forever.  I decided to take a test drive and let me tell you that this thing just kicks ass.  I have it installed both on my phone and several computers where I can access the notes from anywhere.  I fully enjoy this because my last note taking software was the TASKS section from outlook.  Microsoft was doing a better job with them, but Evernotes ability to take notes anywhere is amazing.  To briefly go through what kind of notes it can take:

Desktop

• It can take anything typed or from a web browser.  The browser part is quite extraordinary because all you have to do is click a button and it adds a note.  You can either highlight text or make the entire web page a note without highlighting and wa-la, you have a web page that you don't have to bookmark for later.  You can just go back to your notes which then unclogs the bookmarks for the real purpose of what bookmarks were made for.

Phone/PDA

• Voice notes
• Text note - Typed text
• Ink Note - If you have a touch screen you can write on the note.
• Snapshot - You can take a picture of some document or anything.  If you take a picture of the document, EverNote has the ability to capture the text off the document so it can be edited for later.
• Upload a file - Currently this isn't on the desktop version, but you can upload a file which will be saved both on your dektops and the database.

Coding

• I specifically use Evernote a lot when have some interesting piece of code that I want to make sure I have at home too.  Instead of emailing it to my self, I now place it in Evernote, tag it as code and then I am off!

For both os's, you can save, delete, tag, print, categorize each and every note.

I wanted to mention one more thing.  This program is FREE!  The service has limits unless you upgrade, but after using it for several weeks, I have yet to reach my limit.

I hope you will give EverNote a try.  It does also have a IPhone version out as well.

Impressive Site for free software

Posted by scott on 21. May 2008 00:32

Today I found a site called www.Filehippo.com.  This site has all freeware on it or at least it seams.  I was impressed when I first found it because it has the top picks/downloads in related fields.  I know it has helped me because I use a lot of these files day in and day out and I now found a place to get all the cool applications.

You can actually see the files that are downloaded the most which means they are highly liked.

Thanks Filehippo

Files I currently use on the top ten list of FileHippo include:

Hamachi - Network admin assistant allows you to set up your own VPN between computers accross the world.

SpyBot Search and Detroy - Spam ware cleaner for your computer.

Songbird - A new music player, but doesn't have the features like winamp does.  Hopefully it catches up soon because I am tired of using the bloated Winamp media player.

Nero - Used for burning all my CD's and DVD's.

Digsby - The underground TOP Secret Messaging client.  It kicks all ass in windows messaging, but is barely known to the outside world.

CuteFTP - My FTP File agent.

WinRAR - My file zipper, I wouldn't leave home without it on my thumb drive because everything now is compressed in some format or another.

.NET Framework 3.5 -  This one is a given for any developer out there and is an essential driver for any windows pc.

Google/YouTube and TiVo to Launch an at home Service

Posted by scott on 24. March 2008 00:18

For something that has not been in the news, Google and TiVo just joined up to launch YouTube video viewing on TiVo boxes by year end.  YouTube videos are watched about 66,000,000 times a month and now you will be able to watch it at home if you have a broadband connection and  a TiVo Series 3 box.  Just imagine the advertising revenues Google will bring in for YouTube that has YET to produce significant profits.  Everyone in the country has a TV, not everyone has a computer.  Google is just satisfying their over all goal, which is to organize the worlds information.  Just imagine, no more TV programs and large TV companies that demand a specific amount of commercials.  These companies have already started to post their shows online the day after it airs, just imagine the shows now straight to your TV instead of Illegally downloading them on things like Torrents.

Sometimes I dislike Entrepreneurs!

Posted by Scott on 18. March 2008 13:28

So I read an article today about Kevin Ham.  Anybody heard of him?  This man has not only been named "The man who own's the Internet", but also beats out Internet Moguls like John Chow. Kevin, built a 300 million dollar empire over night.  On what you say?  Buying up Internet domain names and throwing advertisements on each site he bought.  Why does this idea make me not only upset, but Furious?  Well, first it was a GREAT idea to buy up the domains. Hah, I wish I though of it first.  Why does it make me mad?  Well, because when I go searching for a new domain name to add and actually put content on, He already owns them!  I honestly wish the United States would call this a monopoly on domain names and force him to let go of most of them.  The Internet is free and I would rather like to see great content out on 300,000 domain names than advertisements. It would make the world a better place, I think.

I actually wonder if the politicians know about this at all?  Well, it just disappoints me that content can't be put on sites like these, but It does say at the end of the article that Kevin plans on putting content on the sites, but how long and what kind of content would he actually decide to put on the sites.  That also brings on another thought, if he does not like the content then he can be a dictator as such and have it removed.  This I think is a form of obstructing free speech.