My FTP backup solution, aptly named Backup, stopped working properly when Kathy and I upgraded to Windows Vista. Unfortunately, there is no way for a Windows service to hook into mouse or keyboard messages for the desktop of the user logged in. This is a problem because now Backup can't tell how long the user has been idle, a key component in determining when to backup files. The .NET 2.0 framework did not provide a reasonable way for me to overcome this hurdle, so the project's sat in limbo for months.
Currently, Backup has 3 modules. First is the Setup module which allows the user to select which files they want to have backed up, and what server to back them up to. Easy enough. Second is the Service module that actually does the backing up. Third is the roncli Productions common module that handles things such as registration and about dialogs.
Since the Service module can no longer handle idle time detection, I have to split that piece out, yet somehow communicate back to the Service module when an application is idle. Windows Communication Foundation to the rescue.
With WCF in the .NET 3.0 (and now 3.5) framework, I am able to easily create messages to send from a client app to a server app. I simply alter the Setup piece to be always running in the background when the user logs on, and tells the Service when the user is idle. Of course, there can be multiple users, so all the users would have to be idle at once, which is no big deal to figure out.
This seems like an awful lot of work to get a service to know when its users are idle, but it'll get the job done, and Backup will finally be Vista-ready.
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Yeah, it's season 11. But the OTL Season 6 highlight reel is up, this time Fireball has taken the reins! Check out this video jam packed full of kills, deaths, silliness, and Sirius puns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXstLVjnaGo
Bing is so bad. https://otl.gg is being blocked in their search results, and Bing webmaster tools are absolutely useless, not telling me why it's being blocked.
Does anyone know of some way to get a human to look at this and see what's wrong with it? #bing#microsoft
Me and my wife, despite buying a house of nice size, always seem to get in each other's way, be it in the kitchen, on the stairs, it doesn't matter. She's all up in my two square feet.
I often joke that all I want for Christmas is my two square feet.
I got the honor and privilege of calling the NES Tetris NTSC world record today while running Classic Tetris Wars on my Twitch channel for the very first time. It was thrilling. Congratulations to Blue Scuti for his 6,609,220 level 153 performance. https://clips.twitch.tv/DiligentDeadGoldfishDoritosChip-cx_vDMWAjKaZUK6N
Six Degrees of Sunday, my 6DoF long play Twitch series, is getting revived for 2024. Plus, I will be producing Six'd Off, a companion YouTube series showcasing each game.
@shanselman Speaking of Overload, here's something you may be interested in... recently, some community members released "Overload First Strike", a single player Overload campaign that is a complete remake of the original Descent First Strike campaign.
It can work with just the original game, but it works best with "olmod" as it takes advantage of some of the features it provides: https://olmod.overloadmaps.com