UPnP

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is an architecture for peer-to-peer network connectivity. One of the most important features is the support for automatic service discovery. PeerAware (PA) uses this mechanism for discovering workspaces running on the local network. When a new workspace is started, PA users nearby will automatically discover this and display the workspace on the start page.

How it works is quite simple: Each PA service instance registers a workspace list device that is announced on the local network, and stores a list of active workspaces on the computer. Each PA client instance will search the network for PA workspace list devices and retrieve the list of active workspaces from each. Workspaces discovered are displayed in the local list on the start page.

PA will also use UPnP for controlling IGD compatible devices. Internet Gateway Devices (IGD) like ADSL modems and wireless access points are automatically configured for NAT traversal if UPnP is enabled for the gateway device.

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Beta 4

Sunday, August 19th, 2007

Summer is over, and my coding sessions on PeerAware (PA) are getting more intense. With the latest release I focused on general stability issues and running the workspace as a service. I run my two test workspaces on a dual core rig, and I have XP set to receive Windows updates automatically. That ensures that my system is as protected as possible, but previously that led to the workspaces shutting down when the update routine did a reboot of the computer. And since I normally start PA as I log into my account that meant that the workspace remained closed until I logged on again the next morning. Since the security updates keep trickling out of Redmond, running a workspace as a service is essential for operating a stable network.

Two workspaces are active on my computer, one for general discussion of PA, and the other for playing Texas Hold’em Poker. Both are on the list of workspaces visible when you start PeerAware. You can play poker or chat, but file sharing is disabled.

The latest release also add the concept of presence to PeerAware. You have the option of setting your online status to ‘Online’, ‘Away’ and so on like in most IM systems. Status is visible if you hover over a user in the workspace user list.

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Distractions

Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Quite a few things are happening, and I am not able to code my usual 5 hours a day on PA. One distraction has been a reward I promised myself for when PA was made public. After it’s release I bought a camera along with a couple of lenses. So now I bring the camera everywhere I can, and try to get to know it.

Another side-track has been to make a few html scripts for PeerAware. I started out making a script for playing chess, followed by battle-ship, and finally Texas Hold’em poker. Well, the first two were simple enough, but I had never played poker before so I had to learn that by playing, reading, and watching World Poker Tour on TV. I had no idea how much fun poker was, and now I can see why so many play it.

The support for html scripts was not planned, and originally the chat window was implemented as a text window. In order to get smilies into the chat like in Microsoft Live Messenger, I struggled for a bit, and found that it was a lot easier to add smilies to a html document. And then I found that, hey, I could do a lot more with this, and added a small API for sending messages to other people in the workspace. And then it was really tempting to make a couple of games with this. So far I have made the mentioned games, and an adaption of cumulate draw (http://www.cumulatelabs.com/cumulatedraw/) so that people can draw things together. My Cumulate Draw adoption has not been released yet, but eventually it should be.

My final distraction is work. Daytime I work for Opera Software writing network code, and tomorrow morning I am off for two weeks in Japan working with a partner on a customer project. That should take a couple of weeks, and meanwhile I will not be able to make any updates on PeerAware. But seeing Japan should be fun.

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How it started

Saturday, April 21st, 2007

Hello, and welcome to my blog. My name is Jonny Rein and I make PeerAware.

The idea for PeerAware came in fall 2002 while I worked as a software engineer for Tandberg Television. I had been with the company for 8 months when headquarters was moved and mass layoffs meant 60 developers had to go, myself included. But as Newton’s third law states, for every action force there is an opposite reaction force. My reaction was to find my own project to work on.

The idea that stuck was initially a peer to peer search engine. After losing my job I traveled around the world for 7 months, but kept taking notes every day. By the time I returned home the idea had evolved into a plan. I wanted to create a tool where people could share, find and discover information.

Finding the right information or people has always been difficult wherever I have worked. Communication tools like e-mail, instant messaging and intranet/wiki/blog are among the most common, but each has it’s own quirks. Traditional methods like phone-calls, meetings or lunch are great, but access to the people you need to talk to is limited. Often you might not even know exactly what you should look for.

PeerAware was created as an alternative or supplement to the other methods.
- Chat in a group when you don’t know who has the answer you are seeking.
- Chat in private when you know who to ask.
- Search shared documents when you are looking for a specific document or topic.
- Browse a colleague’s shared documents when you want to discover what he is working on.

As time passed PeerAware evolved into a tool that can do much more, but focus is still on collaboration, knowledge discovery and information sharing.

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