Nice, I think you will end up loving how easy they have made windows programming in VB 2008.
I started in about 1978 doing basic on Commodore PETS and Commodore buisness machines
Did a bit of IBM assembly language and 8080 assembly. (can't remember the chip number)
Perl was the next language I learned.
and now VB2008.
I already had an example project that will monitor X10 traffic and display the traffic in a text box.
It also has buttons for turning on and off X10 devices and doing a query on a device.
It has a button to send the app to the system tray. click on the tray icon to bring it back.
It has an example of how the timer function works.
Just have a look at the commented code sections and you will be on your way
download and extract the zip file below, click on the .sln file to open the project in VB2008 express.
http://www.el34world.com/Misc/home/Files/X10Monitor.zipI have another very elaborate X10 program I wrote that monitors traffic, monitors module states, takes actions based on motion sensors that trigger Powerfllash modules, etc
I have another one that monitors Dallas one wire sensors and and can turn on fans, etc in my greenhouse based on sensor readings
You can do just about anything if you can read a sensor of some sort and then control an X10 device based on that reading.
I don't use AHP pro anymore, only to add new modules to my cm15a. Everything works better if you add your modules to AHP and then download the changes to the cm15a. At that point, I exit AHP and don't use it.
Your programs and AHP can run at the same time no problem if you want to.