Being as passioned about computers and technologies as me, I figured it was about time I jumped the blog wagon. This is my first post, and it’s about my latest project; two MSN bots.

 This summer I came across a nice little .NET library wrapping the MSN Messenger protocol, but I haven’t had time to check it out until now. The library is called DotMSN and the compiled assembly, documentation and source code can be downloaded from http://www.xihsolutions.net/dotmsn/. The library is quite straight forward, you create a new Messenger object, set your credentials, connect to the name server, and start responding to events, such as conversation created, contact added etc. I’ll probably write an article about how to use the library later on.

 At the moment I’ve got two bots up and running, offering a really nifty little service. In Trondheim, the company offering bus service has a nice web application where you can ask about bus routes using natural language. The language interpretation is written by one of the professors in artificial intelligence at the local university, so it’s actually quite good. You can ask the “Bus Oracle” questions such as “When does the next buss from A to B leave, after 16.00 Saturday”. I’m using screen scrapping to access the web page offering this service, and the MSN bot acts as a gateway between messenger and the bus oracle. To access the bot, simply add bussorakel@hotmail.com to your messenger contact list.

 I’ve also wrapped the equivalent service in Oslo, called Trafikanten. Its understanding of natural language isn’t as good as the bus oracle, but you can ask questions like “From A to B”. To access the bot, simply add trafikanten@hotmail.com to your messenger contact list.

 Both bots accept the command “!hjelp” which will show you a list of available commands. Comments and suggestions are appreciated.