First Release: Meebo Desktop
Posted on December 25, 2006
21 Comments
I mentioned a few weeks ago that a “desktopized Meebo” would be pretty cool. Had a positive comment from the desktopize fellow but not much more than that. But the idea was stuck in my head…
Having a bit of spare time over the holidays, I spent at least 3 hours on a little utility to share with folks to get those ideas into a digital form. Fun!
Caveat up front: This is written in VB.Net. I am not a professional VB.net coder. In fact, this is my second application built with Visual Basic. So be kind. Of the 3 hours I mentioned, at least 2.75 of those were spent searching the web for examples. 
Seriously though, this is an incredibly simple application. (Yes, that’s it in the image to the left showing up the “New URL…” menu option.)
All that being said, I think it’s pretty slick. Hopefully others will too — and hopefully the Meebo folks won’t be too upset.
What’s it do?
- Runs Meebo as a Windows application
- Minimizes to the tray
- Keep in mind, I don’t have an API to Meebo, so don’t forget to un-minimize every now and then to see if anyone’s talking to you
- I personally try to remember to make sure the Meebo sound is on before minimizing
- Keep in mind, I don’t have an API to Meebo, so don’t forget to un-minimize every now and then to see if anyone’s talking to you
- Run any other site you wish.
- Click the system menu (upper left corner) or right-click the title bar to see the “New URL…” Menu.
- Enter new URL (don’t forget to preface it with http://)
- Clicking Default will get you back to where you started
- Generates envy from all around you.
Requirements
- .NET framework 2.0. I’m not positive, but I think the installer thingy will have a link.
Why?
I wanted to build something useful with VB.
Why would you want a Desktop Meebo application? For me, it’s because I’m hooked on Meebo, but don’t want to have a browser open all the time. Browsers leak and even with my mad/’leet Firefox memory reclaim stunts, it’s still good to restart the browser from time to time.
Download / Install
Click the pretty picture for the archive:
Unzip it on your machine and run setup.exe. Enjoy.
If you wish to uninstall, you’ll find “Meebo Desktop” in your Add or Remove Programs control panel.
Disclaimer
Install and Run at your own risk. This works great for me on the several machines used for development and testing. I believe that will apply to your machines as well. But I won’t promise it nor will I guarantee it and I certainly won’t be held liable if something goes horribly awry (not that I think it will, but hey…).
The Meebo name and the Meebo icons belong, of course, to the Meebo people.
License
Err, well… I’m a feeb about licensing. I’m too embarrassed to release the code at this point, and I’d prefer not to see someone selling this thing so I’m not sure where that leaves me. Guess I have some research to do.
For the moment, let’s use the Creative Commons SA 2.5 license I guess.
History
12/25/2006 - Version 1.0.0.3 Released
12/27/2006 - someone dugg it!
Tags: .NET, free, meebo, meebo-desktop, vb.net, visual-basic
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Comments
21 Responses to “First Release: Meebo Desktop”
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Very nice. Ran exactly as advertised.
Question: Will it install and run from a USB drive?
If not are there plans for a portable apps type version in the future? It begs to be portablized.
Nicely done, great Christmas present to us meebaddicts.
As long as the PC connected to the USB drive has the .NET 2.0 framework installed… in theory is fine.
The trick is, right now, the way this thing is installed would need to change.
Great idea and food for thought!
I have noticed a bug recently. Whenever the app is minimized to the task bar, the first 2 IMs that come in are minimized to the top right hand corner of the screen once I open it. There is no way to maximize the IMs because it triggers a script error. The only thing it allows is to close them. Has anyone else seen this or is it just me?
Hi Raf — I’ve seen that happen at times, but haven’t been able to reliably reproduce it.
Out of curiosity, what version of IE is on your machine?
Hi Chris - I am running IE 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519
As an avid Meebo user, I love this program. I’ve already started using it daily. It was always a pain having to restart Meebo whenever I needed to restart my browser.
Two things that would make this even better:
1. The ballon notification that tells me, “Meebo Desktop is minimized down here to save space” etc. was nice to know the first time but since it happens everytime I start the program and minimize, it’s getting pretty annoying. Anyway to tell it not to appear ever again?
2. It’d be nice if the icon could have a transparent background instead of the white rectangle. It’d make it look a lot better on both the taskbar and the system tray.
Thanks again for a great program.
–Wayne
Good stuff Wayne. If the corporate world slows down soon I’ll address both your (very valid) points.
Honest: I thought I’d snagged a transparent background…
Thanks for your feedback!
Hey Solo, this is really cool, but the only concern I have is putting my contact information and password onto meebo. (not keen to loose my 6diget uin again:))
Hey Jez — that’s the eternal challenge for the “all-in-one” IM tools, eh? Desktop or web-based, you have to decide if you trust ‘em.
I, personally, trust the meebo folks, but I can certainly understand the concern!
this would be absolutely fantastic, if I could get it to work. COuld you tell me what the problem is. I use vista (reluteltly - it is pre installed and wont let me put XP back on), and it says tghe 2.0 thing is already part of my system, but I still get this error message.
[snip]
ERROR SUMMARY
Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log.
* Activation of C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Temp\Rar$EX16.654\MeeboDesktop\MeeboDesktop.application resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected:
+ Exception reading manifest from file:///C:/Users/Owner/AppData/Local/Temp/Rar$EX16.654/MeeboDesktop/MeeboDesktop.application: the manifest may not be valid or the file could not be opened.
+ Manifest XML signature is not valid.
+ Access is denied.
[snip]
I have to confess I never had a chance to try it out on Vista (I still don’t have a Vista machine…).
At a glance, it almost seems like you either have a corrupted file or permissions issue of some sort. Wish I could help more. :-\
As an alternative, you might check out my recent WebRunner article. There’s an intriguing Meebo option there as well.
http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/10/prism/
the newest way to get meebo
the windows version is somewhere near the bottom
and getting meebo is simple as installing prism and then clicking the prism button and putting in http://www.meebo.com
and Meebo in the app screen
how do I put icons in meebo….I go on aim from meebo nd I wanna put icon so how do I do it???
Vaidehi - I have no idea (in fact, I’m not sure I understand the question).
For Meebo support, try their forums: http://forum.meebo.com/