Here's an interesting article. This programmer is trying to create what he calls a "presence" system built into the desktop environment that we use. This would be similar to using an instant messenger that allows you to specify your status, only in a much more advanced manner.
Instant Messaging is becoming ever more pervasive in our lives today. Once upon a time, it was limited to geeks and a minority of our friends, but as we begin to connect with more people, things become much more complex. Christian Hammond explores the more subtle problems of Presence Management.
Introduction
Nearly everybody today uses an IM client to talk to their friends and family. Some even use it for discussions within their companies. Instant messaging has become an everyday part of life for these people, and have even supplanted the telephone for many uses. Thus we have the concept of Presence.
Presence
This article is not about instant messaging, per se, but rather about one key feature that makes instant messengers as useful as they are: Presence. Now, not everybody immediately knows what this is by name, but you’ve definitely made use of it. Presence is essentially the availability status of people. So, in your buddy list, a person’s presence may be that they’re available, away, idle, or marked that they should not be disturbed. These are just a few types of presence.
Presence, as it turns out, is useful even outside of instant messenger clients. Imagine going through your cell phone’s addressbook and being able to determine immediately whether or not someone is on the phone or if their phone is off. While we don’t have that capability on cell phones today, it’s something that you may very well see in the not so distant future. However, we are gaining this functionality in desktop computers. Soon, you will be able to go through your evolution addressbook and, based off information gathered from your IM or teleconferencing clients, you will be able to see who is available and who is not. Incoming e-mails will also provide an indicator, so if you really need to reach somebody immediately, you can choose the IM route over the e-mail one.
It’s all well and good to be able to integrate presence into various applications, but what about setting presence? Right now, when you get up to leave the computer, you have to set yourself away on any and all IM clients and other similar applications that you have running. It can prove to be annoying, and some elect to simply skip the whole process. In time, this will get easier. One single panel applet could set the desired away message on every capable program for you. It could even be intelligent and notice when you’re away from the computer and, depending on the day and time, auto-set the correct away message.
This all sounds great and fun, but someone has to write it. Fortunately, somebody is—me! For the past ten months, I have been developing a project I have named Galago. Galago is a project designed to provide presence to the Linux desktop. It’s a Freedesktop project, and thus is not tied to any particular desktop environment. However, as a GNOME user, I have a particular interest in integrating Galago into the GNOME desktop.
Full article from the Gnome Journal
http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/news/article.php?story=20050113213647686