eWorld.UI - Matt Hawley

Version 0.1 of the NNTP Posting Plugin for NewsGator has been released.  This version includes basic support for replying to newsgroup posts as well as new posts to newsgroups.  Download and try this plugin out if you're looking for NNTP Posting support within NewsGator. Post improvments or bugs on this blog.

I've been looking the last few days on how to use .NET to post messages to NNTP.  My intentions are to create a NNTP posting plugin for NewsGator.  My research today left me with a good tutorial and code (in C#) on how to communicate with a NNTP server...however, whenever I attempt to post to my NNTP server it errors with a "503 - Command Not Recognized" message.  I'm just wondering if anyone has successfully been able to post items to a NNTP server with .NET, as well as, does anyone have any other good resources?  I realize they're are a few 3rd party NNTP components out there (IP* Works and Active Up) but since this would be a plugin for NewsGator, I couldn't be able to utilize those.  Any help would be appreciated.

It seems that Microsoft has decided the whole "MikeRoweSoft.com" incident that was publicised yesterday was bad publicity for them. (story)  It sounds like Microsoft will be settling the dispute so it will be fair to both parties.

After my post yesterday, I decided I should give NewsGator Online Services a try.  When I checked out the online demo, I was thuroughly impressed with the different services they offer. I figured that it wasn't going to cost a thing since they had a 14-day free trial, so I signed up right away.  Once in, I noticed some sluggish performance, but I wrote that off as "first day jitters" and the popularity & use. 

Microsoft has decided to sue a 17 year old Canadian boy over the domain name MikeRoweSoft.com (story).  The boy's name is actually Mike Rowe, and he registered the domain name to host is personal website.  Back in Nov., he received an email from MS telling him to hand over the domain.  He later received another email stating they'd pay him $10 for it.  He was appalled by this and responded back that he'd sell it for $10,000.  Well, that didn't settle well, and just recently he received a nice large book on why he'd be handing over the domain name or be sued.

I finally got around to finishing up bugs & enhancements to my custom controls and released version 1.9 Beta to all of my Beta Testers.  I give a big THANK YOU to all of you who test my controls prior to a full release.  If you're interested in becoming a beta tester, just drop me a line. 

The day has come where I've been waiting for about a month...the release of NewsGator 2.0. As most of you know, this is a MS Outlook plugin that integrates seamlessly with Outlook...and I can say that v2.0 is even better than 1.3. The new "NewsPage" is a lot better and more streamlined...makes reading my feeds a ton easier.

I haven't checked out a new feature, Online Services, but they've got a 14 day trial, so I make take the plunge and see if its worth the $5 or $6 a month. Here is the changelog from 1.3 and screenshots from 2.0.

I've successfully built my 2 installers (one for 1.0 and 1.1 frameworks), and let me tell ya, NSIS is a pretty good install script creator. With NSIS, I was finally able to do what I wanted to do:

1. Give the user the option to not install to the GAC
2. Give the user the ability to choose what optional components they want installed.

All of this done without the headache of creating custom actions & trying to figure out how things work in the limited MSI Setup Packager within VS.NET. I definately suggest this free script creator as it is very, very nice, to all developers out there struggling with VS.NET's MSI Setup Installer.

The only problem I came across, was how to install stuff to the GAC, but Martin Webrant gave me a good pointer. I also built in support for detecting the .NET framework & its versions. If you're using NSIS, or want to get started and need some pointers for installing .NET assemblies, I'd love to give ya some help and give you some of my functions.