Instant Messaging and Picture Pages

Description Of Page

This page describes both the instant messaging system used for TeleNature as well as the central web page used to display and share pictures between experts and people in the field. It will first discuss the instant messaging, and then the picture transfer and HTML page creation. Each section will have a broad overview, then a broad series of steps on setting up the systems with links to more specific information. Then a section on possible future improvements to the system.

Overview

The TeleNature project has used some simple, common software to use for communications. Text messages between people are transported by common instant messaging protocols and clients such as AOL and MSN. The details of the system and some future improvements that could be created will be discussed first.

The second part of communications was the transferring of images. It could have been done by using some of the built-in file transferring capabilities of some of the instant messaging clients. The drawbacks here were significant. First, it would create more work for the user if they were consulting several experts. Second, it forces the user to have to deal with organizing large amounts of photos. Third, it has the potential to obscure communications. Instead, batch scripts were set up to automatically transfer any images placed in certain folders to a remote server. Once on the remote server automated scripts ran which processed the picture and put it onto a central website. The details of the implementation are slightly complex, and will be discussed last.

Instant Messaging

The instant messaging application currently being used for the project is GAIM, homepage: http://gaim.sourceforge.net. GAIM actually supports multiple protocols, which gives it flexibility. I decided to go with GAIM after having some problems with the Windows Messenger. Another advantage was that GAIM allows many more settings to be changed, unlike most of the "traditional" clients. This was useful since DNS was not always available (for efficiency reasons), and GAIM allowed ip address to be used. Now, each protocol has different servers, usually run by those who create the clients. This means you have to register with each protocol, and for some with each server. This makes the initial setup annoying. However, it is a one-time cost.

Setup

1. Download GAIM http://gaim.sourceforge.net and follow the instructions for your platform. If you are using Windows you will probably need to install the version with gtk+. If under Linux you will need to compile with SSL support.
2. Register for a Microsoft .Net Passport. Go to hotmail, http://www.hotmail.com, and follow the instructions for signing up a new account.
3. Start GAIM, and hit the Accounts button on the first screen.
4. When the Accounts window opens, click Add.
5. Change the protocol to MSN and fill out the appropriate information
6. If you do not have DNS, put 207.46.104.20 as your login server, and your port as 1863
7. Click save
8. Select the account in the Login window or via the Accounts window. In the Login just click Sign In. In the Accounts, put a checkmark in the "online" column.

Future Plans

While the current instant messaging meets our needs, there is room for further development. The main possibility it to establish our own instant messaging server using a protocol like Jabber. There a few existing Jabber servers for different platforms. Jabber would allow ourselves to have an central point where all the messages are delivered, enabling more complex manipulations of the messages. It may be possible to back up messages, save a copy to a bulletin board for future reference, and translations of other protocols. Translating the messages allows users to use existing IM clients and protocols. We would also be able to give out accounts at our own discretion and be able to have a server that would be far more reliable.

Picture Transfer

The automated image transfer system is essentially a system of a few simple scripts working together. The setup tends to be more complicated, but to the user all they have to know is the folder to put images in. The transferring and HTML generation is done automatically. The images in the folders are transferred to a remote web server where a page is automatically generated to display a thumbnail gallery. An expert then can consult this gallery to view the images in order to assist in answering questions. The expert has the same ability to add images to the gallery. The galleries at the moment are very simple HTML pages, due to the fact bandwidth out in the field is extremely restricted. However, they could be more complicated if needed.

General Setup Instructions

1. Make sure you have an ssh client. If you are running Linux/UNIX, it should be available as ssh from the command-line. For Windows, SSH Communications ssh client was used. Recently they have started to charge for this product. No alternatives have been investigated yet.
   • http://www.openssh.org is the defacto ssh client/server for linux and UNIX.
   • http://www.ssh.com has the Windows client, now called Tectia. Tectia is the same as the last free version of the client, but it is now being charged instead of a free product
2. Set up an account on a web server and give it access to a folder that the web server will use to display pages. At this point the automated scripts are *nix based.
3. Configure the client via the technical document at http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~webvibe/doc/Picture_Transfer.txt using the account created above. The scripts referred to by the document are available via picture_transfer.tar.gz, picture_transfer.tar.bz2, or picture_transfer.zip
4. Set up an automated script that will generate thumbnails using the ImageMagick program and then create a gallery picture display using the thumbnails that are linked back to the original. The thumbnails are needed due to the low bandwidth. Without them it would be impossible for a user in the field to receive the gallery page in a reasonable time. My script and description of it can be found at http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~webvibe/doc/GalleryGenerator.txt

Future Plans

First, changing the image transfer for Windows computer from a batch file that is run from a scheduled task to an independent service. This should solve some of the problems, such as the fact Windows XP will not allow a user to schedule a task to run as themselves unless they have a password to login, even though the default security allows a user to login without a password. For *nix systems this less of a concern since cron can deal with the task about as well as a daemon could.

Second, a more complicated script for image processing and page creation could be developed or found. Perhaps one that would recognize the key used for login to the account and create one for each user. Or a simple/complex view being offered.