Over the course of the next month, I will be dabbling with several different things.  Hopefully, time will permit me to share some tidbits of useful information related to these "pet projects".

So, what are these pet projects?

Custom WCF Encoder
I am currently working on a custom WCF encoder.  I don't really want to give away what it does yet, but I think it will be pretty useful.  Right now, it is one of my lower priority tasks.  So, it will probably be another couple of weeks before I am ready to unveil it.

Smart Client Software Factory
It appears that I will be doing some work with the Smart Client Software Factory in the near future.  Most everyone that knows much about me understands that I am not much of UI person.  Although UI is a very important part of an application, I prefer getting into the guts of back-end processes, services, business logic, etc.  However, smart clients are somewhat of an exception since they typically interact heavily with services.  It should be some fun work that might possibly tie into WCF.  I will be posting some of my experiences with the factory approach.

Niche GUI Concepts
Even though I don't typically play around in the GUI realm, I am currently experimenting with some concepts for the prototype of the interface of an upcoming product.  Some of the ideas include a deskbar, appbar, and system tray application.  Deskbars typically reside on the Windows Taskbar (think Google Deskbar).  Appbar is short for Application Desktop Toolbar.  These are usually dockable to the side of your desktop and have the ability to optionally float on top of other windows.  Finally, most everyone should be familiar with the good-ole applications that minimize to an icon in the system tray.  It has been difficult to find very much useful information about how to achieve some of these UIs in .NET 2.0.  So, I plan on sharing some of what I discovered.