Hi Kevin:

It sure sounds like you are doing good work.
I will definitely try your software.

RE firewalls blocking your port number

JXTA has a "relay server" plugin you might be able
to cut and paste from. It's a pretty simple idea.
If you (or somebody) runs a server outside any firewall,
it can serve as a relay host, that wraps your packets
inside a normal port 80 http packet, so it can travel
through the firewalls without hassle.

Software either side of the firewall strips
off the http skin and uses it however it needs.

This is straying pretty far from fly tying, but we are
talking about fly tying software, and it does sound
like you've done some pretty cool things.

What I'd really like, some day, some way, would
be the ability to make ad hoc queries, with more
structure than keywords: entity label attribute queries like
"show me all the flies online with
attribute 'wing material' equal 'kip tail'
and attribute 'wing color' equal 'white'
and attribute 'inventor' equal 'somebody one'
and attribute 'tier' equal 'somebody else'"

.............making the queries wouldn't be so hard,
if and only if the data was there to query.