The NetSender is a GUI frontend to the Windows NT "net send" command.
If you have never used net send before, the "net" program is a command line utility supplied with Windows NT/2000 that allows you to do various network tasks such as map network drives. However, using the "send" option it is used to send short messages to other users across the network that pop up on their screens and look a bit like this:
Why did I do this? Well I've been meaning to do this for a long time, ever since I started Uni (several years ago!). It's only now, after I've left Uni that I'm actually getting around to doing it.
The idea came back to me recently because of the fact that I was doing a lot of net sending in the company that I work for. Unfortunately not everyone knows about net sending and/or are frightened by a command line and so I decided that I would write a program to make the whole thing more user friendly.
I also had another motive for it. I haven't done any programming in a long time and I was worried that I was getting rusty. That's the main reason why I didn't just go and download one of the many other net sending programs out there on the net.
Initially I wrote a version using the Java language. My main reasoning for using this language is the fact that it is the language that I know the most.
The problem with this solution was the fact that the only Java support that the computers at work had was the VM included with Internet Explorer which was severely limited and therefore didn't allow me to do as much as I could. I had to go for a different solution.
As luck would have it, I just happened to have a copy of Borland Delphi 6.0 Personal Edition. It was something that I had played around with before, but never done anything substantial with. So I decided to have a go. It's been difficult, because I am having to learn a new language and all it's quirky conventions. I'm learning a lot, so it's all good.
Last updated on: 13/05/2002