retrieve skype contact photos using python

tonight i was looking for a way to retrieve display pictures of my skype contacts from .dbb files and ended up with this small piece of code. i don’t find it much useful though but someone might be interesting so here it is.

#!/usr/bin/env python
#
# Author Ghulam Mustafa <mustafa.pk@gmail.com>
#
## This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
## modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version
## 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.

## This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
## WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
## General Public License version 2 for more details.

## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
## version 2 along with this program; if not, write to the Free
## Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
## MA 02110-1301, USA.

profile = '/home/mustafa/.Skype/cyrenity/'

skypefiles = ["user256", "user1024", "user4096", "user16384", "user32768", "user65536",
              "profile256", "profile1024", "profile4096", "profile16384", "profile32768"]

##retrieve contents of skype binary files and store them in a single variable
skbin = []
n = 0
for f in skypefiles:
 fil = "%s%s.dbb" % (profile, f)
 try: skbin.append(file(fil, "rb").read())
 except: pass
 n = n + 1

binary = "".join(skbin)
##

## get_icon(username, binary)
## returns
##    True if successfull
##     None if failed
##    -1 if user not found
def get_icon(buddy, binary):
 startmark = "\xff\xd8"
 endmark = "\xff\xd9"

 startfix = 0
 endfix = 2

 nick_start = "\x03\x10%s" % buddy
 nick_end = "0"

 nickstart = binary.find(nick_start)
 if nickstart == -1: return -1
 nickend = binary.find(nick_end, nickstart)
 handle = binary[nickstart+2:nickend]
 blockstart = binary.rfind("l33l", 0, nickend)
 imgstart = binary.find(startmark, blockstart, nickend)
 imgend = binary.find(endmark, imgstart)

 imgstart += startfix
 imgend += endfix
 if (imgstart < 1): return None
 ##print "JPG %s from %d to %d" % (handle, imgstart, imgend)
 jpg = binary[imgstart:imgend]
 jpgfile = file("%s.jpg" % (handle), "wb")
 jpgfile.write(jpg)
 jpgfile.close()
 return True

users = ['cyrenity', 'gmustafa9']
for user in users:
 status = get_icon(user, binary)
 if status and status != -1:
  print "success [%s]" % user
 else:
  print "failed[%s] [%s]" % (status, user)

p.s. you are encouraged to send me update if you found a bug or fix something.

howto install Karaka: xmpp gateway to skype!

You came here searching for howto install karaka. Vipdia Limited doesn’t tell much on how to setup karaka step by step, yesterday someone asked this question on karaka-discuss mailing list, this post is helpful for you if you are thinking about giving karaka a try.

more here: http://groups.google.com/group/karaka-discuss/browse_thread/thread/d6eb8fcd61bd3e05