Belligero Productions

Haven't been doing much on good ol' nmAutoLogin recently, but I plan to get back on that when my laptop gets back from repairs.  The next major step is dropping the C, for reasons I will explain later, and replacing it with Python.

In the meantime, I just thought I'd go and mention a small freeware app I've thrown together.  It's an instant messenger client and server written entirely in Java, with a nice little description page that can be found over here.

It's freeware, but not open source, mostly because releasing it as open source would be more of a hassle than its worth, especially since I don't see it becoming overly popular, with such things as AIM, MSN, and Pidgin flying around.  Now, for a quick rundown of noteable features:

• Compiled in Java 1.5, so able to run on any systems with Java 1.5 installed
• Multi-user client-server application
• Server can be started wherever you want it to be
  • No need to worry about going through firewalls if used internally
  • Never touches internet if used across a network
  • Can be used at home, work, across the globe, wherever
• Can have conversations with whoever you want who is connected to the server
• Port numbers are irrelevant
  • Both client and server will default to 1057, a nice nonstandard port
  • Different port can be passed by command line, which will be used in place of 1057
  • If both client and server are given same custom port, will work flawlessly
• Nigh unlimited number of users can be connected at a single point in time
  • Only limiter is what the JVM can handle
• Nothing is recorded after the connection is closed
  • Other clients will still have the messages until the window is closed
  • Currently, because of a debug message, whoever disconnects will be written to ommand line, but this isn't an issue

Not sure if anybody will use this, but just thought I'd throw it out there.

On a different note, I still have no summer employment, but while listening to the FLOSS Podcast somebody turned me on to, they were talking about Google's Summer of Code, and I'm going to try applying.  Getting paid to work on open source software, in the one semester my employment isn't insured?  Sign me up!