Please please just use Java. It's open source and runs cross platform. Then you can get all those valuable Windows / IE users and not just Mac 5% --- From my

Please please just use Java. It's open source and runs cross platform. Then you can get all those valuable Windows / IE users and not just Mac 5% --- From my previous post :: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=552633 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=552633 * Desktop Notifications - This is solved, I wrote one myself[1] Try using existing Java/Browser technology. I would suggest this: Each compatible web page has a signed applet which can also run resident on the remote machine via Webstart. If the server is not listening yet, start it. If it is listening, send it a message. The Webstart remote applet then displays the message in the GUI. My server just bound to a range of well known sockets, and the clients tried each one in turn. Try to keep it simple. I just wrote a string with a carriage return to the socket. No XML, no heaviweight protocol.