Local Presence Information

I posted recently about Zeroconf, which allows for automated service discovery. One aspect of this which has already been exploited is the ability to have a local network of presence information, something like what iChat does to announce users who are online. However, it also passes along some simple FOAF information with it. I can’t remember who wrote the tool. If I recall correctly, it was shellac/Damien… ah, here we go. foaffinger.

Small HTTP server combined with zeroconf shares data.

Now, to expand this out a bit… now that I’m starting to know how to deal with Python a bit better, I might be able to do something with pyzeroconf and pyrple. I’d probably want to learn something about graphics too… wxPython requires an install. Are there any “built in” GUIs for Python? I don’t think so.

Anyway, local FOAF browsing of full data rather than just a subset would be nice. Not too hard, I don’t think, since Python makes almost everything simple. Of course, there is the problem that there’s no one that I share my network with… 😉

Ah well, I do have 2 macs, 2 linux boxes, and 2 windows laptops in the house now. (Wow! An even split. Nifty.) I can try it out somehow or another.

I’m kind of rambling. Usually I’d reserve this for noets, but I wanted a tie in from the Zeroconf post I just made.

Comments are closed.