Implementing timer states(Available,Busy,Away etc) in a chat application vb8

I am currently developing a chat application and am trying to i开发者_StackOverflow社区nclude:

• Various states, like MSN does, available, busy and away.
• If the user doesn't touch the keyboard for one minute, the state of the user isto be changed into Away. Or something similar to these.

I also need the program to be able to play a sound while running.

Can the community aid me with resources to help me implement this and perhaps any code if anyone has experience with a similar application?

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To manage an inactive state, what you can do is use a timer paired with a global keyboard hook (the article is for C#, but you can easily translate it to VB.NET). Each time your application receives a keyboard message, the timer will be reset to the inactivity interval. If the timer runs out, you can set the status of your application to be inactive.