phpListGrab was created as an example on how to interact with the .NET Messenger Service in PHP, you simply pass it a Passport and password and it populates an array of the contacts in all lists.
Monthly Archive for May, 2006
Ken Levy reports on the new developer initiative for Windows Live:
The Windows Live Platform is about opening Windows Live services to create shared opportunity for developers and businesses. Open Windows Live services via APIs and SDKs to 3rd parties to create a virtuous ecosystem that mutually benefits users, developers, partners, advertisers and Microsoft. Many of the developer centric services that we release will occur in stages, with new APIs available as well as improved and more consistent APIs with existing services over time. Some of our goals include Users are in control, easy for developers to make money, Simple HTTP based APIs, anyone able to build applications and components for about any operating system platform, browser, language, and device.
Ken was also interviewed at the recent Windows Live Hack Day in the Channel 9 video. Go forward to about 9:47, where he explains a bit about the Windows Live developer movement and the upcoming Web site.
A preview is expected to be available at http://dev.live.com sometime next week, with the full launch during June.
Juzzi from Msgweb.nl posted on the forum about the latest competition from Microsoft for MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger:
Today, Microsoft launched a new competition: Robot Invaders. This is of course the follow-up to the ‘World’s Best App‘ competition. As you probably already figured, developers are now challenged to create exciting new ‘Bots’ for Messenger, instead of activities. From the official website:
Microsoft is challenging developers worldwide to create conversational robots, or BOTs, for MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger. The most original, useful robots collect $40,000 in total prizes.
So if you think you’re able to create a unique robot for Messenger, give it a shot and you might win a kick-ass $10.000 Alienware workstation!
Also check out Leah’s post at the Windows Live Messenger blog.
I completely forgot about the tab when launching Fanatic Live, so it’s been sitting there like a zombie and probably no one using it. Today I spent a little time getting it working again and updating it to reflect Fanatic Live-ness. Take a look at it, but don’t look at the header - it’s huge, I just pulled the one from here, will get a smaller one soon.
On the topic of tabs, I also updated the TabServe MsgrConfig data, which was long overdue as well, in the next version of TabServe I hope to automate this process or totally remove the concept of storing your own config, instead just editing the live version on the fly.
While I was updating the data, I noticed a new setting:
<PublicFederated> <YahooNetwork Enabled="true" OfflineIM="false" Upsell="http://g.msn-int.com/5meen_ms/177/" /> </PublicFederated>
This was for the US data, and note that it is configured to be enabled. Yahoo! integration must be really close.
The latest post at the Windows Live Messenger Space reports on the Windows Live Messenger add-ins feature:
As of this week, the Messenger Add-ins feature is officially available to developers only. The option to enable add-ins in the Options dialog is disabled but there is a registry key which allows developers to use their skills and build wonderful add-ins. Ken Levy has all the details on his blog and Katie, the add-in dev, has samples and docs on her blog.
Katie Blanch’s blog at MSDN is new and looks very promising, her first post describes her background at Microsoft how she came to be a developer for the new add-ins feature:
The feature I worked on with Messenger that I’m most excited about is ‘Add-ins’, and that’s what this blog is mainly going to be about. I’m hoping to post sample code, get feedback about the API and what we should concentrate on next, and hear about any issues or painpoints you have creating add-ins.
My last post didn’t really address how to use add-ins or how they work, but I did respond with a comment on what I did know. As luck would have it, Katie’s post “All About Messenger Add-ins…” explains things quite well, it is confirmed that MessengerClient.dll is a .NET assembly, so it looks like we’re bound to VB.NET and C#, at least for now. I’ve read a few discussions on people interested in creating an add-in which acts as a proxy to allow languages like VB6 to interact, interesting to see how that goes.
Read Katie’s full post for lots more information and how they work.
I will be needing to get my A into G and post some new content here, I can’t even remember the last time I posted an original article. There isn’t even anything here on the Activity API, so much for a developer’s site huh?
