Re: Newbie to xap

[James <james@xxxxxxx>]

aashram wrote:

>I am keen to get into xap and reap all its benefits. I using homeseer
as well as various touch screens around the house. Use itunes as whole
house audio with airport express.
>
>How will xap benefit me ? I love the dashboard feature
>
>
As your using HomeSeer a good start would be to load up the xAP plugin
(mi4.biz) . This will bridge all your HomeSeer devices to xAP and any
xAP applications can be made in to HomeSeer devices.
You can then use applications such as News, Weather and TV to bring
content in to HomeSeer and can then be used with your touchscreens.
As xAP works across your network the information passed by these apps to
HomeSeer is actually given to the whole network, so every pc can benefit
from it. By using display applications like xAP Desktop or MCxAP for
WinXP media centre you can see this information everywhere. So in the
case of xAP News not only will HomeSeer show the news stories as
devices, but xAP Desktop can show them as a news ticker and you could
have MCxAP popup new headline over your tv.
As Paul mentioned Switchboard with xAPTel  make a very useful call
logging setup and as it's all done with xAP, HomeSeer will also get all
the call information passed to it too.
The only infrastructure xAP needs is a network, be it ethernet(tcpip),
serial, radio. The only slight complication is because of the way tcp/ip
works only one app on each pc can listen to xAP. To get around this you
need to run a xAP hub which lets any number of applications work on a
single pc. The best and simplest is to run the hub as a service, windows
2000+, from www.xapfreamwwork.net. Once installed you can forget about
it and just run xAP apps as you like without having to worry about any
network issues.

Below is a list of apps that are available at mi4.biz and what each do,
there are fuller lists on the xapautomation.org site and in particual
the wiki  wiki.xapautomation.org.

*xAP Weather*
Collects information from your local internet weather station and
reports the current weather over xAP. It can also collect the forcast
for the next 5 days, figure out sunrise and sunset times and features a
nice gui to see the weather details without using xAP at all.

*xAP Desktop*
Desktop is a fully customisable desktop display system for xAP. It can
pull data from any xAP device and present them in floating windows or on
a dynamic wallpaper.Using floating widows, dynamic wallpaper,
transparencies, fading windows, etc it displays information in as rich a
format as possible whilst trying to keep out of the way of pc usage.
Introduced in beta2 was a full script engine which can further expand
what Desktop can do, and now the displays themselves are web updateable
and new displays are being added all the time. Beta 3 introduces remote
mode where Desktop can link to the xServer across the internet and get
all the functionality from home anywhere in the world.

*xAP HomeSeer Plugin*
The plugin brings any xAP device in to HomeSeer. You can create virtual
devices from any element of any xAP message either manually or using a
very simple wizard. In fact for most known xAP applicaions all you need
to do is start the xAP app, a wizard will pop up in HomeSeer and you
click create, that's it!. The plugin goes further by xAP enabling any
other HomeSeer device wheter they are internal HomeSeer ones or from
another plugin

*xAP Switchboard*
Switchboard logs all incoming and outgoing calls. It maintains it's own
address book and matches all calls against this. It looks up the STD for
the calls and also can associate an image to a contact. Using the
optional Outlook plugin you can use your Outlook address book and it
will sync up address lists from as many outlooks as you like. All
interaction with this app is done through a fully featured web
interface. Also can now monitor and log instant messenger events too

*Outlook 2003 plugin*
This plugin to Outlook 2003 allow reminders and new mail to trigger xAP
messages, including text to speech, display and SLimp3 display. You can
schedule any xAP message by use of a reminder/appointment and allow xAP
messages to be sent from any email. All is controlled by setting mail
and reminders to different categories. When used with xAP Switchboard
this plugin will sync you Outlook contacts with the Switchboard address
book so you can use those contacts for Caller ID lookups even when
Outlook isn't running. This isn't limited to just one copy of outlook
you can run as many as you like. When linked to Switchboard, if a new
call comes in or a new outgoing goes out and that call is matched to an
Outlook contact, that contact will popup in Outlook and call information
is appended to the notes field. (Currently only supports standalone
Outlooks, not those connected to exchange)

*Intranet Launcher*
The launcher is a small tray application that gives you quick and simple
access to all xAP Inratnet applications. It can be set to auto start at
logon and also functions as a simple display client. As well as listing
all the intranets it can be set up to include links to upto 100 websites

*xServer*
The xServer is a xAP router that is used as the base for remote access
to your xAP network. Featuring access controls with ban lists, multiple
security policies. It is used as the server for xAP Desktop's remote
mode, can be used with the xRouterClient to bridge 2 networks and does
all of this with upto 20 concurrent connections.

*xAP Watcher*
Run as a service or a tray icon, Watcher keeps an eye on your pc. It
reports over xAP hard disk space, memory usage, active processes and
processor usage. It can generate alerts if these fall below a pre set
limit. As well as monitoring the pc it can optioanlly monitor the user,
reporting logged on user name, whether the pc is actively in use and the
name of the active window. Information from multiple Watchers can be
viewed from the Watcher Viewer application from anywhere on your network
from where you can also change the warning limits on individual
Watchers. Watcher can also function as a simple display client.

*xAP News*
News monitors internet news feeds and report the tops stories over xAP,
it also alerts you when the top story changes. It can monitor RSS .9,2.0
and RDF news formats and is able to handle upto 1000 of them! News can
be run as a service or a regular app.Also now supports podcasts on any
of the 1000 feeds and will auto download and copy the files to your
device overnight.

*xAP TV*
Downloads TV listings from the RadioTimes, Bleb or XMLTV and reports now
and next information over xAP. You can set alerts for programmes which
generate OSD messages when triggered and search from xAP for programme
information. Also features a full web interface with password protected
sections and an RSS feed for the current programmes

*xAP SMS*
Using the sendmytxt.co.uk internet sms service, xAP SMS lets you send
and receive SMS messages from any xAP application. It features a full
gui so you can just use it as a standalone SMS app. It has an address
book which gets its information from 3 places; an internal address list,
a xAP connected address book using a xAP<>SQL conduit and you local
Outlook contacts list (97+)

*xAP Ping*
Ping is able to ping and monitor upto 1000 remote servers. It can also
check free space on remote windows/samba file shares and at the same
time check the remote clock. If contact is lost with any server, Ping
can send out a xAP display message which can be picked up on any Desktop
or Watcher client. It can also send the alert over email eith by using a
xAP email conduit or straight to any smtp server.

*xAP Speech*
xAP Speech gives you network a voice, it's able to use any available
voice on any sound card and can eaither speak to file or through the
sound card.

*xAP Travel*
xAP Travel alerts you to any travel problems.

*xAP DigiTV*
xAP DigiTV xAP enables Nebula Electronics DigiTV application.

*xAP Stock*
xAP Stock monitors stock prices, using Yahoo's data services.

Nearly released apps
----------------------

*xAP Intranet OCX*
This ocx makes it simple to create xAP application that function both as
xAP apps and intranet ones. Includes all the xAP receiver, transmitter
code as well as all the webserver.

*xAP Touchscreen*
A full screen version of xAP Desktop. It's centrally controlled and
updated and can load and use xAP Desktop displays. It has been extended
beyond Desktop to include an on screen keyboard and a built in web browser.


HTH

James