hello everybody

can anyone suggest a good reading for winsocks programming using VB

i want to program a chat s/w for LAN with file transfer facility.....and no server/client type will be able to detect who is online and who is not.........

well the 1st prob is that of multiple connections on single winsocks....well i thought of creating a new winsocks control at run time........and give it a different port..but how can i know that another application is not using the same port..........

second thing that i want to discuss is that.i want to use single chat form..that is when the user will click on a listed username he will be presented with a form to enable him to chat.....for that purpose i want to use single form and load load a new from this form at ru time...but that form will also contain the code...let us say to make the text colorful....so how can i write a code that will change such properties at run time............