I hope so! [NOTE: No, this is not the mentioned announcement regarding An Inconvenient Truth. Once I have the servers, DNS, S3, etc… all stabilized, then I will make that announcement. But the last thing I want to do is announce this in the middle of a MAJOR server transition… This is an EXTREMELY imortant topic, and it needs to be launched without a hitch… I’m preparing for that exact scenario as we speak…

In the mean time….

[ANOUNCEMENT]

Viberavetions Community Development Blogs, Forums, and File and Photo Sharing Server is Now Live! :D

http://dev.viberavetions.com/community/

Below you will find a copy of the post I just added to the CommunityServer-based development blogs, forums, etc… in which will become this projects intial home base as far as giving each of us who desires to get involved the ability to communicate with one another, discuss ideas, ask questions (Len… I have a full overview that I am writing that speaks to each of your bullet-point questions. I hope to get that done today, but it may not be until tomorrow, whis is dependent upon on how the transition to the new servers, and S3 goes…), etc….

But to get things set off with a bang, I figured the best thing to do is to give you an application to play with,

http://pypod.net/console/index.html [NOTE: Because of the permissions level necessary for this app to run, you need to access this link from within IE (obviously on a Windows box… This WILL run via Mono, but not yet. More details on this subject @ below/mentioned post.

NOTE: If you are not a developer, and even more so, unfamiliar with the Python programming language (.NET 2.0 experience, any language, would certainly help as well), then this application is NOT FOR YOU. Wait, let me rephrase… you can install it all you want… it may not make any sense to you when an IronPython (Beta 8-based… need to make an announcement regarding this as well)-based Console app appears in front of you, but please don’t let this deter you from installing and running this if you feel so inclined.

A TON more info is below… But I think its important we push hard and fast with this, so if you’re cool with that… then buckle up… This is going to be some fun :D

Getting things started…

So what we are about to embark upon I think is a pretty exciting thing.  I’m REALLY excited to be a part of this, and look forward to an increasing community involvement to help define and shape the tools and services that artists, musicians, and fans of these same folks can use to help connect with each other to share thoughts, art, music, and of course help bring a focus to the promotion of a free culture in which free represents the freedom to share, as well as the freedom and ability to create a career with that in which you are truly passionate about in life.

Let’s get things started, started, shall we :)

The following link requires the .NET 2.0 runtime librarys (about 22 megs or so of which a link is provided if you don’t have them installed already) and because of the default “sandbox” permissions in Firefox and Opera, you need to access this from within Internet Explorer (which would, of course, suggest that you need to be running Windows… for now.  The code is cross-platform compilable, and as we continue to move forward and finalize the feature set of the various applications, we can then start taking things to the next level.

While I’m sure there is a way to get this to install in both Firefox and Opera, this particular app requires that it runs with full system permissions to the underlying libraries which require full system access to run correctly.  So for now, until I have some time to figure out some of the more detailed things such as this, I ask that you be willing to bare with me and open up Internet Explorer if you don’t use this as your default browser on Windows.

Thanks!

http://pypod.net/console/index.html

This link will provide the opportunity to install a Click-Once application, that when installed (quite literally only requires that you Click-Once to gain acess to the full installation program, of which will update itself each time there is an update available when you start the application.  This will install into your Start menu, and you can add/remove from your standard control panel as you would expect.  The only thing different is that once installed, you never have to worry about downloading updates manually, or even worrying about looking to see if there ARE new updates…  It does all that for you automagically.

While there is a quite a bit of horse power at your finger tips once installed, unless you are familiar with the Python programming language, theres not a whole lot more you will immediatelly be able to do with this.  However, if you do know Python… Then let the games begin :D

For now, I only plan to announce this as a DEVELOPER ONLY release, so if you are not a developer and you read this, while you are more than welcome to install this application, please don’t be frustrated when you are left wondering what to do next.  It won’t be obvious, unless it is… (I hope that makes sense :D)

PLEASE NOTE:  Contained inside of this application is COMPLETE access to the .NET 2.0 framework, the Python 2.4 basic libraries, the ability to run Java applications that have been compiled with the IKVM.NET Java compiler for the .NET platform (see http://weblog.ikvm.net for more info), access to the Mvp.Xml libraries, access to, and the ability to start, the Mono XSP ASP.NET 2.0 Web Server, running as a local server on your personal machine, and (of course!) the latest Saxon on .NET (8.7.3) XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, and XQuery 1.0 libraries.  Theres also the ability to access the GlobalClip library to implement support for a LiveClipboard enabled Clipboard in which you can share with whomever you might want either directly (via XMPP/Jabber) or Globally (currently there is support for Amazon’s S3 service), and within the next few hours I hope to have some basic Windows Communication Foundation (Indigo) built into this as well, which, among other things, will provide TONS of capabilities as far as Atom and RSS web feeds are concerned, which as you will come to find out, is a HUGE part of what drives the current and planned capabilities of this project.

So for now.. Enjoy!  This initial application will be developed at a pretty good pace, so the added luxury of the Click-Once application is something I think we all will quickly learn to both love and appreciate.

One last night (insert: huh??? lets try point, while I think of an excuse as to why I wrote night instead of point :D)… I am in server transition mode as I move and reconfigure things to take FULL advantage of Amazon’s S3 Web Services platform, as well as several of their other offered Web Services, such that we all can begin to push this project forward without any concern that the capacity to handle things is not there.  With S3, it most definitely is, so please be patient for another 12-24 hours while I keep the transition as well as this code base moving forward.

In the mean time, this site will be live at all times, and provides full forums, blogs, a place to upload files, pictures, and more… So please don’t be shy… Have at it! :D