Just some quick notes that I feel I should blog about.

Danielle will be 30 on the 31st! Contact me if you feel like you should be at the party. :)

Just released a bug fix version of palaver!

Chesspark is going well and we have made many improvements lately.

Vote for it on jyte! :) You will need an openid account to vote.

http://jyte.com/cl/chesspark.com-is-the-best-place-to-play-chess-online?

The following is a quick overview of what I am doing these days:

1. I just bought a new house and have been doing all the fun stuff that comes with it, like painting, moving furniture, and fixing things. I also installed some flood lights on the back porch. I will have pictures up eventually.


2. MUSC is as fun as usual. ;)


3. Punjab should have a new release and a mochikit javascript library that ships with it soon.


4. Palaver should also have a new release with many new features added, more to come on this later.


5. Last but not least has been Chesspark. It has been just over a month since beta release and things have been moving along. We are about to release some new features like correspondence games and tournaments. If you have not checked it out yet, you should check it out now! We are also in need of a web developer to help with the web client and website. If you are interested in working with python, django, twisted, xmpp, or ajax then please apply. Chesspark is also open source friendly. :)

I have been working on a project for OGG, LLC called Chesspark. If you did not catch the announcement, Chesspark just went beta. It is an online chess community and uses XMPP for its IM and game protocol. Punjab and Palaver are some open source projects it utilizes. It also uses jabberd2 as the server and idavoll for two of its pubsub mechanisms. The weblient located at the following url :

http://chesspark.com/webclient/client.xhtml

uses http binding provided by punjab. It and the windows client will be released under an open source license shortly. The jabber client library strophe is already open.

Of the many neat features chesspark has, there is one that I like a lot. It is the ability to use an existing jabber account to play chess. You just enter that as your chesspark account and then create a password that is used just for the chesspark website. Then, using your existing account and password, you log in with a chesspark client and you are able to play chess and still keep your existing roster.

We have many ideas for future features and with a growing interest it should be an exciting chess community! We are also hoping to do more games in the near future. I am excited!

I am sure I will be mentioning chesspark more, but if you would like to keep up with new features, etc you can follow the news or blog at chesspark.

We have released version 0.3 of palaver. This version has bug fixes and supports its old file back-end and a new postgresql back-end. It also has support for 'player' roles and 'player' affiliations. Now that it has a new postgresql back-end, I am gonna do a write up on how to provide a web interface to palaver with django! Keep looking out for this! :) You could also use punjab, but I will save that for later. Speaking of punjab, it should have a new release soon.