myOSity is now supporting user status changes.  You'll now be able to see if people in your friend list are online or not.  If they are online, their status indicator will be green and you will be able to chat with them by floating over their name (or clicking on it) to bring up the context menu.

I've recently changed the way guest accounts are supported in myOSity.  Previously, all guests shared the same account on the back-end, meaning that I had to disable certain features that required unique accounts - like chat.  Now visitors who choose to login as a guest will receive a temporary unique account.  Very soon I will be implementing an auto-join to a public chat channel for all guests, so that folks can experience the chat system and interact with each other in real-time.

I'm also in the midst of redesigning the web-services component of myOSity to take full advantage of the new "RIA Services" framework from Microsoft.  After careful evaluation, I feel this is the right way to go for the long-term.  Without getting too technical, using RIA Services will simplify the way that myOSity client/server interaction happens.  I'm hopeful this will yield performance benefits, and also make future development easier and faster.

Due to increased traffic and interest I am getting regarding myOSity, I've decided to open up the ability to create accounts, so folks can experience all features currently enabled.

Feel free to create your account today and have a look around!  You'll be able to do a few more things with a full account than guest accounts can do, such as chat and file uploading.  Currently I (John) will be the only one in your friend list, but I will soon enable the ability to send invitations to other myOSity users.   More importantly, you'll be able to take immediately advantage of new features as they are added.  I'll continue to post new feature updates and other important changes to this blog.

One other thing I'd like to note:  myOSity is still an early stage (alpha) version, so from time to time, you may experience disruptions and other odd behavior.  I may need to do a full account wipe at some point prior to beta and/or production releasel, but will try my best to preseve everything I can. 

Enjoy and keep the feedback coming!

 

(myOSIty Welcome Dialog with the "Create An Account" button active)

The myOSity chat application now supports smileys. 

You can select them from the menu (displayed above) or type them in manually.  Float the mouse over the smiley to see what code to use for it.  Enjoy!