Spring is Here
Status
Just wanted to give a little update on what I'm working on since I haven't posted in a while. Right now I'm working on a simple 3 week project with Crystal Reports 8 and classic ASP to generate reports. Crystal Reports is not the most friendly tool I have ever used but there seems to be a lack of good, easy to use, reporting software available in the market. I have one main beef with this tool, the lack of at least close to standard SQL. Why can I not paste my sql code, which I know works, directly from my query tool into Crystal and then use that to generate a report? Maybe this has changed in the latest version.
Open Source
On another note, my open source project, OpenSmtp, has received over 11k downloads to date. I am pleased. Contributions are picking up as is use. But after 2-3 years of work on it I am losing steam. I wish to devote my time to other ideas and hand over this project to a responsible Admin with myself as just a developer.
On of the ideas I have been banging around in my head is the idea of darknets. I would like to write a .Net application that can run on Mono used to share files between friends in a small private network. I don't want to copy the waste protocol out of fear that AOL might try and pull the plug. But the ideas used by waste are a good starting point. Many things need to be added to make it really useful by the averarage computer user that just wants to create a virtual private network of friends to share things with and communicate securely. This project would use everything I have learned to date about networking protocols and encryption. It would be a great test IMO. We'll see. My first step is to draw up some UML diagrams, create a small spike/prototype app, then open the project to the public and see how it goes.
Other things
One more thing - the html editor for this blog doesn't work in firefox :-(