Which other site?

Just look at whatever minimum time the server suggests; I believe other people are using 30 seconds. (LJ users are addicts.)

The Open Diary (http://www.opendiary.com/), which is getting much too advertising-heavy for my taste (my take on it is that I'll gladly pay for the service, but I'll pass on having to pay and still having multiple pop-ups). A few people with particularly long diaries are quailing at the thought of having to move them with cut-and-paste.

I'm planning to make it configurable, but always at least what the server suggests - just looking for a sensible default. 30 seconds works for me.

What language do you write .NET stuff in? C++ or C#?
We could use a good Win32 client... :)

You look like a relatively new user, so on the chance that you don't know too much about LiveJournal: we're super-bend-over-backwards-friendly to anyone who wants to change anything / contribute anything to the site, even to the point of giving account codes (and in rare cases permanent accounts) for contributions.

Let me know if you need anything. (I guess I'm the official "client" contact here.)

I stick with C#, mostly - if I'm not going to write unmanaged code, C++ just seems to get in the way a lot...

Time and day job permitting, I'll give a Win32 client a shot, see what I can come up with.

Thanks.

hehe. if you need help, let me know. i am the author of the win32 client that lj currently has as its official client. i also have some experience with .net and c# so.. :)

it sounds like the project you are doing right now, is what i had been planning on starting for the past 5 months or so, but keep getting distracted with work and other fun projects.

if you are interested in doing a c# client (or need/want help with the c# lj lib) let me know. i'd be interested in helping out.

Hmm. I missed all the original discussion and development of the friends-checking stuff. Was a notifier (rather than polling) ever suggested/tried/abandoned? It takes some work on the server side, but strikes me if this is going to become common (which it will, if it's available) it would use less resources in the long run if a client could open a port, and solicit the server to send it messages if changes happen, rather than keep asking. I'm sure there will be drawbacks (like it won't work through firewalls and whatnot properly) but ... I'm sure some (hopefully largish) percentage would be able to use this.

Now I've said all that, I havn't actually looked at coding such a monstrosity, so I'll shut up and go 'way and think about it now ...

some users cant open ports on their machine due to firewall/router/nat or whatever. i also think the server would be doing more work than it had to.