Installation: Windows service

There is a new way to run MyHAL on Windows. Download the Windows setup, extract it and run setup.exe. Go in the installation directory (by default: "C:\Program Files\MyHAL project\MyHal") and modify the "MyHal.Service.exe.config" as explained here.
Then go in "Start"-"Control Panel"-"Administrative tools"-"Service" and start the "MyHal" service. Now, MyHAL will start automatically with your machine.

(see the "MyHal.log" file in the installation directory in case of any errors)

Installation - part 3: execute the program

1. Install Mono or .NET 2.0:
   

• MyHAL runs on Linux using the Mono runtime. Follow this link to download and install Mono.
• MyHAL runs on Windows using the Mono runtime or .NET 2.0. Follow this link to download and install Mono, or this link to install .NET 2.0.

1. Execute MyHAL:
   
• On Windows double-click on "MyHal.Console.exe" (if you have .NET 2.0 installed), or execute the following command: "mono MyHaL.Console.exe" using the Mono command prompt (in "Start"-"All Programs"-"Mono for Windows")
  
• On Linux run the following command: "mono MyHaL.Console.exe"
2. Launch your Jabber client (on any computer), add the account you created for MyHAL to your roster (your "buddy list"), and start chatting with your computer!
   

Installation - part 2: install and configure the program

1. Download MyHAL on sourceforge.
2. Unzip the package.
   
3. Open the "MyHAL.Console.exe.config" file with your favorite text editor and fill in the following parameters:

• <add key="JabberServer" value="ServerName"/> : put the server name on which you created the account for MyHAL (for example: jabber.org)
• <add key="JabberId" value="MyHALAccountName"/> : put the account name you created for MyHAL (for example: MyHAL-home)
• <add key="JabberPassword" value="MyHALAccountPassword"/> : put the account password you created for MyHAL
• <add key="User" value="YourJabberID@yourServer"/> : your own Jabber user account (for example: john@jabber.org)
• <add key="CanChat" value="false"/> : change it to "true" if you want to be able to chat with MyHAL. (Warning: the initialization process could take several minutes and the program could consume up to 100Mo of memory)
  

Installation - part 1: Jabber accounts

1. Register a Jabber account for your computer: using your favorite Jabber client create an account on any Jabber server (for example: MyHAL-home@jabber.org or John-laptop@jabber.org). This account will be used by MyHAL to log on the Jabber network.
   Don't have a Jabber client? Read the doc here (at least chapters 3.0 to 6.0)
   
2. Register a Jabber account for yourself: if you don't already have one, of course.
   

Hello everybody!

Have you ever wanted to talk to your computer?
Now it's possible!
I introduce myself: my name is MyHAL (do you remember HAL in 2001: A space odyssey?). I am a Jabber bot that runs on your computer. What is Jabber? It is an Instant Messenging technology like AIM, ICQ, MSN, or Yahoo messenger. So, with a Jabber client (you can find a list here), you can communicate with me from anywhere. You could chat with me, execute commands remotely, display system information or create alerts (e.g. I can warn you when your disk lacks free space, when a download has finished etc. (the only limit is your imagination))

Anybody could contribute to my development (developer, tester, or just for giving ideas), there is an open-source project hosted on sourceforge.

From a technical point of view, I am implemented in C# on Mono (so I can run on Windows and Linux systems) using SharpDevelop and TortoiseSVN.