All posts by : Kirk Allen Evans Blog

1 of 131 | Export Your OPML from Outlook - Lately I have fallen in love with Office programming, but I’m still a complete n00b at it.  I was pilfering through my RSS feeds the other day, and realized I didn’t have a way to export the feeds list as OPML.  Hmm… good time to open Visual Studio and start tinkering.  Here is what I came up with. Create the Project To get started, go to the C# node in the New Project window, and you’ll find a sub-node called Office, and another called 2007.  Click on the 2007 node, and create a new Outlook 2007 Add-In project (remember that Outlook 2003 didn’t have RSS support out of the box). That creates a project with a file called ThisAddIn.cs.  Open that file, and you’l......

2 of 131 | Free SharePoint Developer Training - Even more free training for SharePoint Developers.   Module 1 - Developing Solutions on the SharePoint Platform » learn now Module 2 - Web Parts » learn now Module 3 - Page Navigation » learn now Module 4 - Page Branding » learn now Module 5 - Data Lists » learn now Module 6 - Web Services » learn now Module 7 - Event Handlers » learn now Module 8 - Content Types and Site Columns » learn now Module 9 - Workflow » learn now Module 10 - User Management » learn now Module 11 - Silverlight » learn now Module 12 - Deployment » learn now ...

3 of 131 | Convert XElement to XmlNode (and Convert XmlNode to XElement) - This is just way cool.  Check out Eric White’s blog for a slick use of extension methods to make it easier to convert types in the System.Xml namespace to types in the System.Xml.Linq namespace, and vice-versa.  Here’s a quick teaser: XElement e = new XElement("Root", new XElement("Child", new XAttribute("Att", "1") ) ); XmlNode xmlNode = e.GetXmlNode(); Console.WriteLine(xmlNode.OuterXml); XElement newElement = xmlNode.GetXElement(); Console.WriteLine(newElement); No, that code won’t compile on its own, you need to define the GetXElement......

4 of 131 | Understanding Tracking in Windows Workflow Foundation - This post will show how to create a simple console application that executes tracking queries in Windows Workflow Foundation 3.0. In my last post, I created a demo that shows how easy it is to use the persistence capabilities of WF.  Another incredibly valuable feature of WF 3.0 is the ability to use tracking.  Tracking, in as simple terms as possible, is a mechanism that allows you to write events to a database to log various events within your workflow.  Instead of peppering your workflows with Console.WriteLine or Debug.WriteLine calls, you can use tracking as a way to write events asynchronously to a durable store so that they can be queried later.  I wanted to try ......

5 of 131 | XmlWriterSettings Encoding Being Ignored? - I had an interesting exchange in an internal mailing list today, and thought that my readers could possibly benefit from this clarification as well.  Scenario You are working with the XmlWriter class and trying to write the contents to something.  You are expecting the XML declaration to look like:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> However, when you inspect the generated XML, it instead looks like:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> Background The XmlWriter method has an overloaded Create method that accepts an XmlWriterSettings object.  The XmlWriterSettings allows you to specify if the output XML will be indented, what the indentation character will......

6 of 131 | Abdi Modaressi on Bringing IMS and Web Services Together at AT&T - In this interview, Eric Troup talks with Abdi Modaressi, Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at AT&T, about the challenges behind combining web services and IMS to deliver new types of experiences for the device, computer, and TV experiences.  Abdi talks about the challenges behind providing quality of service (QoS) for web services that is comparable with the QoS levels of IMS.  Eric discusses how work in the TeleManagement Forum has illustrated these capabilities, and how blending web services and IMS together provides a new level of capabilities needed to provide the next generation of user experiences from service providers.  ...

7 of 131 | Hosting WCF in SharePoint - I was starting to write some demos on how to host WCF in SharePoint, and ran into some odd problems.  I kept getting a System.ArgumentException, pointing to a parameter called "virtualPath".  I fought it only for a little while and decided to see if anyone had hit the same issue.  Turns out Sahil Malik did and wrote a great blog series on how to host WCF in SharePoint. To host WCF in SharePoint: 1. Create a WCF Home. This is the virtual directory that will host all your WCF endpoints. 2. Create a WCF Service Library, and throw it in the GAC. 3. Create a relevant .svc file in the WCF home you created in step #1. 4. Write a WCF Virtual Path Provider, and register it in the Shar......

8 of 131 | What You Need To Know: WCF, WCF, ADO.NET SyncServices, and ClickOnce - I had a great time visiting with a great team at Verizon this week.  I was able to present on a number of technologies, including ADO.NET Sync Services, WCF, WF, and ClickOnce.  I was going to send this in an email, then I realized that there are some great bits in here that would appeal to a broader audience.   Getting Started I mentioned in the talk that just about everything I was showing came from the VS2008 Training Kit.  All of the demos and PowerPoints are available there.  My favorite stuff in there is the WCF and WF combination, which I showed (remember Workflow Services and Durable Services?).  There is also a great post that points to sc......

9 of 131 | Calling Web Services via AJAX - Part 2 - Looks like this is an interesting topic to a lot of people since part 1 of this series made it to the front page of Digg today.  Good thing that I was already working on part 2 :) In Calling Web Services via AJAX - Part 1, I highlighted how easy it is to use client-side script to call an ASP.NET web service leveraging the ASP.NET AJAX library.  In this post, I will show how to replace the ASMX service using a WCF service. What is WCF? Most people think of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and WS-* synonymously.  To clarify, WS-* refers to the set of specifications (WS-Addressing, WS-MetadataExchange, WS-Security, WS-ReliableMessaging) that compose the set of web servi......

10 of 131 | Creating RESTful Services Using WCF - A question popped up on an internal email distribution list today about how to expose a WCF service using WebGet and how to post POX (plain old XML) to that service using the .NET 3.5 WebInvoke attribute.  That part's easy, but the harder part is figuring out how to use Fiddler as a client to invoke the service.  If you aren't using Fiddler yet, run and download it... seriously, I'll wait here while you go do that right now. REST in WCF 3.5 There's a lot to the web programming model in .NET 3.5.  Lemme 'splain... no, there is too much, lemme sum up.  .NET 3.5 supports a RESTful programming model, also known as a web programming model, using WCF.  It is really slick ......

11 of 131 | The .NET and Java Interoperability Message Is Starting to Get Out - When it comes to web services interoperability between .NET and Java, the choice used to be limited to SOAP over HTTP. This became even more limited with introduction of .NET 3.0 because only BasicHTTP binding in .NET provides direct interoperability with Java Web Services. [via http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/03/wmq-activemq-interop] I love to see that folks are still talking about .NET and Java interoperability despite the more recent focus and fanfare around RIA and Silverlight.  I actually heard someone during a recent RIA presentation say that ".NET and Java interop is an old story".  Really?  Tell that to the vast number of companies faced with this situation every......

12 of 131 | DataBinding WPF to a WCF Service, and Leveraging IValueConverter for Encoded XML - I met with a customer the other day who had an interesting question:  how do I databind a WPF app to a WCF service?  I thought this was going to be a really quick answer, it turned into another really long blog post. For the service, I am using a slimmed down version of the default service generated by Visual Studio 2008 (File / New / Web Site / WCF Service).  using System; using System.Runtime.Serialization; using System.ServiceModel; using System.Xml.Linq; [ServiceContract] public interface IService { [OperationContract] CompositeType GetDataUsingDataContract(CompositeType composite); } [DataContract] public class CompositeType { bool boolV......

13 of 131 | Communicating - Live on Channel9! - Our new show, "Communicating", is live on Channel9.  My teammate, Michael Scherotter, posted a great set of interviews with Technicolor, Starz, and Reborn Studio.  I love the Starz interview, you get a real behind the scenes look at how a well-known broadcasting company uses technology. I just posted my first interview where I talked with Wayne Citrin of JNBridge.  We focused on the JMS adapters for .NET and BizTalk and Wayne walks through a few impressive demos.  When I first saw the JMS adapters, I knew that this is the sweet spot for .NET and Java interop outside the realms of HTTP based communication.  One of the reasons I like the JNBridge solution is that t......

14 of 131 | Modify Message Content With WCF - Plenty of resources talk about extensibility in WCF, and mention IClientMessageInspector and IDispatchMessageInspector as ways to look at the content of a message, usually dumping to some sort of log.  In this post, I'll highlight their obvious strength:  the capability to change the content of a message. This post really should be titled something like, "SoapExtensions in ASMX Are Too Complex, and How WCF Fixes This."  You see, I have written a lot of SoapExtensions over the years, and I became increasingly bitter about the programming model each time I needed to use it.  SoapExtensions allow you to inspect and change message content within the ASMX framework.&n......

15 of 131 | Slide and Demos for Architecture Webcast Series - Designing and Creating Workflow Services - Thanks to everyone that attended today's session on Workflow Services.  The slide and demos I used are included as an attachment to this post.  Remember that we will draw for a Zune on December 18th, 2007 based on attendance at either the .NDU or the .ARCH webcasts.  Those who attended today are eligible in the drawing.  If you would like to attend future webcasts and be eligible for the Zune drawing, simply use the Email link on my blog to contact me, letting me know you want to sign up for notifications of webcasts. Keep watching my blog and Rob Cameron's blog for information on opportunities to enter in the drawing!...

16 of 131 | Architecture Webcast - Designing and Creating Workflow Services - You are invited to attend an Architecture Webcast Designing and Creating Workflow Services Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Eastern Time Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone else in your organization.   In this installment of the Architecture Webcast Series: Please join Microsoft Architect Evangelist Kirk Allen Evans as we explore how to take advantage of the new workflow services capabilities in .NET 3.5. Workflow services enable you to create reusable processes exposed as services, taking full advantage of the benefits of Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation. In this session, we will discuss: ·   &n......

17 of 131 | Using Silverlight and AOL's Video Search - I had the pleasure of writing a series of articles for The AOL Developer Network, dev.aol.com.  The first two articles of the series are now posted.  Part 1 walks through some basics of using JavaScript with Silverlight and using the AJAX API for Truveo video search.  This is a great way to start from the ground up and really understand how to get started with Silverlight development using scripting. Part 2 builds upon the first article by showing how to host multiple Silverlight controls on a single page, and highlights scenarios where this would be common and should be considered when building page frameworks.  It also demonstrates how to dynamically add elements to......

18 of 131 | Architecture Webcast Series - Architecting the Customer Experience With WCF and Silverlight - Thought I would let everyone know about a webcast that I am putting on this Wednesday!  I am going to show off Silverlight and WCF together, showing how to use things like JSON encoding from services and using that within a Silverlight 1.0 application. Architecting the Customer Experience With WCF and Silverlight   Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM Eastern Time Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone else in your organization.   In this installment of the Architecture Webcast Series: Silverlight is a very exciting new technology from Microsoft, enabling engaging user experiences and rich internet applications.  Silverlight is a cros......

19 of 131 | If LINQ to SQL Is Good, Is SQLCLR Still Evil? - I just got off the phone with a customer, a huge telco, that is in the process of rearchitecting some of their solutions.  They had some great questions about using technologies like SQLCLR as part of their architecture. When SQL Server 2005 (it was code-named "Yukon" back then) was still in beta, customers couldn't seem to get enough information about SQLCLR and to see demos.  Since then, not so much.  Part of the reason that the discussions tapered off is that there was so much discussion early on that focused on scenarios when not to use this feature.  In fact, while preparing and researching prior to my phone call today, I did quite a bit of sea......

20 of 131 | Highlighting Activities in the AJAX Workflow Monitor Example - In my last post, I showed how you can use Jon Flanders's AJAX Workflow Monitor example with Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2.  After I got it working, I was so giddy that I kept on tinkering for most of the day.  If you have seen the DinnerNow scenario, you have probably seen the WF designer control hosted in the MMC snap-in with its executing and completed activities highlighted in different colors.  I wanted to figure out how to do that without downloading the source to find out how they did that.  It was actually really easy to do. Go download the source for the AJAX Workflow Monitor example.  In the project WorkflowDesignerControl, open the file DesignerGlyphP......

21 of 131 | Using the AJAX Workflow Monitor With .NET 3.5 Beta 2 - Awhile back, Jon Flanders posted an excellent example of creating an AJAX enabled Workflow Monitor using ASP.NET AJAX 1.0.  What's really cool is that you can very easily upgrade this sample to use with .NET 3.5 Beta 2 and use it without downloading the ASP.NET AJAX libraries since all of the ASP.NET AJAX goodness is rolled into the framework.  Using Windows Workflow Foundation, you can enable tracking for your application to gain visibility into your application's processing lifecycle.  Just like you would add an entry in your config to persist the workflow, you also add entries in config to enable tracking. <workflowRuntime name="WorkflowServiceHos......

22 of 131 | Interactive Media Manager and Silverlight - There is a cool demo of Interactive Media Manager on On10. If you haven't seen Interactive Media Manager yet, it is a set of web parts and workflows built onto Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 that targets common problems in the media space. Incredibly cool is that it includes a Silverlight-based media player that allows you to do frame-stepping as well as create annotations about each frame, or even on a range of frames. Our DPE group has been talking about building an uber demo, something that incorporates multiple technologies similar to DinnerNow but with a scenario tailored to customers in a telco or media & entertainment. When we saw IMM, we had to laugh… because the......

23 of 131 | A Nostalgic Look at Using XMLHttpRequest with SOAP - It has been a long time since I did any work with the XmlHttpRequest object directly. Most of my XML geekery is done using .NET on the server side with web services, and ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 eliminated my need to directly touch XmlHttpRequest from JavaScript. However, today I found myself with a need to revisit the old-school way of calling a web service from JavaScript. For those interested in a little nostalgia, here's the code that I conjured up. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" > <head> <title>Calling ......

24 of 131 | Those XML Features Are in VS2005, You Don't Have to Wait for Orcas! - InfoQ posts about 5 short demos on features you will find in Orcas.  Glad to see some buzz being generated about Visual Studio "Orcas" features, but... The Data team's post (the one that the InfoQ article points to) is a little misleading.  The post refers to a recent keynote at VSLive! in San Francisco that showed the idea of conceptual data programming with 5 short demos.  The blog post seems to indicate that each of the 5 demos show features you will find only in the next version of Visual Studio (code-named "Orcas").   The fact is that the first two (XML Editor, XSLT Debugging) can be done today using any version of Visual Studio 2005 (......

25 of 131 | Implemented TEST - It's official, I implemented TEST. POST /kaevans HTTP/1.1Host:blogs.msdn.comContent-Type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"Content-Length: nnnn<person>  <name>Kirk Allen Evans</name>  <state>TX</state></person> Of course, the very first Saturday that I am here, Georgia is playing Auburn, and the FREAKING GAME ISN'T TELEVISED HERE IN DALLAS!!!  I am trying to get updates via ESPN GameCast, but there's just nothing like hearing the gravelly voice of Larry Munson while the TV is muted.  I get FIOS this week from Verizon, so there had BETTER be some college football package that I can subscribe to... or Saturdays around the Evans place are goin......

26 of 131 | Scott Guthrie Speaking in Dallas on Nov 2nd - Scott Guthrie, "The Father of ASP", is speaking at the North Dallas .NET User Group on November 2nd. Scott is a fantastic speaker and always has some incredibly cool demos to show off. His presentation will include: ASP.NET 2.0 Ajax ASP.NET (formerly Atlas) LINQ (ScottGi's related blog post) Tips and Tricks Ajax ASP.NET Control Toolkit Web Application & Deployment Projects (ScottGu's related blog post) RSS Toolkit (ScottGu's related blog post) CSS Control Adapter Toolkit (ScottGu's related blog post) I really wish I could be there for this one… just a couple weeks longer until I implement TEST....

27 of 131 | Free .NET 3.0 Training! - Want to learn .NET 3.0?  Here's your chance to learn it for free. .NET University Doug Turnure, Developer Evangelist extraordinaire, announced .NET University.  Want to teach a group on .NET 3.0?  Doug will work with you to provide certificates of completion and even t-shirts for .NET U alumni!  If you would like to teach all 4 sets of slides and labs to a developer audience, you can request to schedule a formal course, and Doug and co. will provide you (at no cost) a registration page, certificates of completion, and alumni shirts for those that complete the courseware. Free eLearning For a limited time, you can get free .NET 3.0 training on WF, WPF, and WCF.......

28 of 131 | Phased Migration From ASMX to WCF - This question came up on an internal list recently (rephrasing the question slightly): I have an ASMX service that is already exposed and is being consumed by a variety of user agents (mobile devices, windows forms, Java clients, etc). I want to change the service to use WCF without affecting existing clients. Is this possible? Turns out there is a pretty cool way to handle this. Remember Kenny's double-decorator post? You can take your existing ASMX and overlay WCF attributes on the WebServiceAttribute decorated class and the WebMethodAttribute decorated operations. Your code-behind looks like this: using System; using System.Web; using System.Collections; using System.Web.Ser......

29 of 131 | Blog from Word 2007 WITH Code Formatting - The past few blog posts that I have made had some code in them, and the formatting was lost. I am using Word 2007 for posting to my blog (like a good corporate citizen), but was just about to give up. The blog posts are really hard to read when you have unformatted code in them. Today I heard about Colin Coller's CopySourceAsHTML. It adds a context menu item so that when you right-click on source in Visual Studio 2005, it will copy the source as HTML. Then you can paste the source into Word 2007, and you get some semblance of code formatting. You can control whether you get line numbers or not, override CSS, and a few other cool features. The only shortcoming that I see is that i......

30 of 131 | Simple WCF Service Behavior: Inspect Messages Through Debug Output - As I demo various web service technologies to customers, inevitably someone is really interested in the tools that I am using to trace and inspect messages. My favorite tool for that purpose is tcpTrace, although there are plenty of other trace utilities for web services. Here's a simple and crude yet incredibly useful utility for dumping the entire message for a WCF service out to the Debug Output window. First, implement a DispatchMessageInspector, which inspects the messages on the service. using System; using System.Xml; using System.IO; using System.ServiceModel; using System.ServiceModel.Channels; using System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher;   namespace WCFExtensions ......

31 of 131 | James Wants to Hire You for Your Dream Job: Architect Evangelist for .NET 3.0 - OK, I love my job.  But this posting made me reconsider my current career: I have an open position on my team for an Architect Evangelist.   This job involves working with key customers to help them understand how to architect their application when using Microsoft's server technologies such as:  - Windows Workflow Foundation  - Windows Communication Foundation  - Windows CardSpace [via James Conard] Yep, you would get to focus just on WCF, WF, and CardSpace.  And since you get to focus on just those 3, you would be one of the most sought-after resources in the industry.  Think about it: every Fortune 100 currently wants someone who knows all 3 of th......

32 of 131 | GeekSpeak This Wednesday, Plus a Little Atlas - I was lucky enough for my friend Glen Gordon to invite me to speak at this week's GeekSpeak.  Of course, we will be discussing ASMX and WCF web services.  I have my machine ready to go for a few on-the-fly coding examples.  What a cool idea, Glen and Jacob! Just as a primer to the show, here is a nice little sample that shows how to use Atlas... err, Microsoft AJAX Library, without using server-side ASP.NET Atlas controls to call an web service using JSON encoding. Atlas makes calling web services very simple.  It provides an extension to ASMX web services that allows processing of JSON encoded text over HTTP as a SOAP call.  This limits the footprint (much less stu......

33 of 131 | WCF Outlook Demo - in VB.NET - I often hear a lament that there exists too few examples for .NET 3.0 technologies using VB.NET.  Here is a cool sample that shows how you can separate the service, contracts, and hosting code.  The sample calls into Outlook and creates a contact, and exposes the service using named pipes. Contoso.Contracts The Contoso.Contracts project contains the DataContract and ServiceContract decorated types.  References:  System.ServiceModel.dll, System.Runtime.Serialization.dll Contact.vb Imports System.Runtime.Serialization Namespace Contoso.Contracts <DataContract()> _Public Class ContactPrivate _imAddress As String <DataMember()> _Public Property IMAddress() As......

34 of 131 | Shared Source at Microsoft - I did a presentation on web services and WCF recently for a crowd that consisted mainly of Java developers.    Some admitted they were downright in awe of just how forward-thinking Microsoft is with WS-* support and were even more impressed at the types of demos I was able to conjure up in front of them with little or no code.  However, one guy stated he was not all that impressed with .NET, and said it would be more impressive if .NET were to become an open source project “just like Java”.  We spent some time discussing the Shared Source CLI and how that has been available from the inception of .NET.  Not sure if that suddenly made him a fan of .NET, but it ......

35 of 131 | I just got a new XBox 360... now what? - For Father's Day, my wife bought me a shiny new drill.  While I was very appreciative, I knew that it would go unopened for at least a month or two as I had just completed the home project it was intended for.  And since we are going to move soon, it might even go unopened longer, as my old drill still works fine. So I returned it, and got an XBox 360 from Wal-Mart.  I got the Ultimate package.  And I bought Halo 2.  And Ridge Racer 6.  I wanted Project Gotham Racing 3, but the store didn't have it in stock. Setup was simple, although I was disappointed that the TV in my bedroom only has a cable input and no RCA jacks.  I plugged it up to the kids' toy r......

36 of 131 | Shawn Wildermuth's Article on SQL Server 2005 and XML - Shawn Wildermuth wrote a great DevX article on Making Sense of the XML DataType in SQL Server 2005. The most entertaining part of this article, as a current Atlantan and Braves fan, is his indictment of John Smoltz' contributions at the plate:    <Team name="Braves">     <Players>       <Pitcher name="John Smoltz" role="Closer"/>       <Pitcher name="Russ Ortiz" role="Starter" />       <ThirdBase name="Chipper Jones"            role="Starter" bats="switch"/>      <......

37 of 131 | Buzzword Bingo 2.0 - AT LAX, waiting on a plane to Atlanta, I bought a book, "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" by Thomas L. Friedman.  Just a few pages into it, and I closed the book cover in disgust.  The writing was great, his points excellent.  It was just one term that made me think, "Can I NOT get away from the numeric lemmings?" The term was "Globalization 3.0." Sigh.  I can't seem to escape those who attempt to create buzz around the recent crop of single-precision decimals propped up against a term. Web 2.0.  Enterprise 2.0.  SOA 2.0. I can't agree with Joel more.  Oh, Lord... not being satisfied with creating conf......

38 of 131 | .NET: The Gospels - A friend looking to get into software development and eager to start his career asked what he should read to get started.  I don't think I've ever posted this list, so here it is.. The New Testament of .NET, starting with the Gospels. If there is ONE book that you should read to be a great .NET programmer, it is Jeffrey Richter's Applied .NET Framework Programming.  If you know what a loop looks like in JavaScript, VB, C++, VB.NET, and C#, and you know what a foreach loop in C# is really doing... then you will completely get this book.  If not, go back and learn just those two concepts and then run to the store to buy this book. If you want to be a great ASP.NET programme......

39 of 131 | ASMX 2.0 and SchemaImporterExtensions - I like the concept of SchemaImporterExtensions in ASMX 2.0.  As you import the schema through proxy generation using WSDL.exe, you can generate your own code to control serialization for the client. This can be a great tool if you have a particularly nasty interop problem and the generated proxy code doesn't work.  For instance, Dan Maharry has been having some problems with the XmlSerializer.  Scott Hanselman suggested for him to control the serialization on the server side using IXmlSerializable, but on the client side, I am betting that he sees the reverse problem.  This is a situation where a SchemaImporterExtension and some custom generated client-side co......

40 of 131 | My ASMX 2.0 Webcast Today - I am presenting a webcast on ASMX 2.0 today from 11:00 am - 12:00 pm EST, which is 8:00 am - 9:00am PST.   This session covers some of the same type of stuff you see in my blog, including the use of generics in web services, what nullable types buy you in web services, how to use IXmlSerializable, and a close look at SchemaImporterExtensions.  We will look at interfaces in ASMX 2.0, and will also look at the WebServiceBindingAttribute's ConformanceClaims property and how to leverage that effectively. This is definitely NOT a fluff session on web services, this will cover how to work around some very real problems. Make sure to tune in....

41 of 131 | Keep or Ditch the Add Web Reference Dialog? - Chris Smith is asking if we should keep or ditch the Add Web Reference dialog in Visual Studio. Don't ditch it, and don't keep it.  Replace it. Replace it with "Add Service Reference", and make "Add Service Reference" a useful tool (currently, it is really lame).  Chris mentions that they are considering ditching it in favor of a better experience.  If the new experience completely negates the current experience, then ditch "Add Web Reference".  But it had better completely negate it to consider dropping the current functionality. The only reason to ditch it is if it doesn't work anymore or you are replacing it with something that is completely cool... something that ......

42 of 131 | .NET Framework 3.0: Clearing the Confusion - This past Friday, Soma announced .NET Framework 3.0. Customers are already asking things like "is C# 3.0 going to be in this? What about LINQ? How about WinFS?"  Sorry, stuff like C# 3.0 (if that ends up being its name, I have no idea) and features like LINQ are not shipping with .NET Framework 3.0. Let's attempt to clear this up. .NET Framework 2.0 + WCF + WPF + WF + WCS = .NET Framework 3.0 .NET Framework 3.0 uses the same C# and same features that were released in October 2005 with .NET 2.0, formerly code-named "Whidbey").  We didn't change the framework, we just added a couple new things to it.  The block diagram for .NET Framework 2.0 looks l......

43 of 131 | Julie Lerman's Webcast on WSE 3.0 Today! - Julie Lerman's webcast on “Introducing Web Services Enhancements for Microsoft .NET (WSE) 3.0” is today from 8:00a - 9:00a am PST... yep, 11:00a - 12:00p for us in EST.  I got a chance to look over the slides and demos... this is a must-see for people interested in the transition from ASMX to WCF....

44 of 131 | Reason #56: Why Hanselman rocks - Tonight I did a bit of referrer surfing, which could be deemed ego surfing.  I started looking through my referrer logs to see who is linking to what.  I stumbled across something I hadn't before... blogsearch.google.com.  It's no Technorati.  They don't seem to offer a "search blogs that link to this URL" feature explicitly, but that functionality seems to come with simply searching a URL.  There's no upsell to try to get you to click on a Google ad link, but there is plenty of relevance for the link list protrayed in the browser.  Good on ya Google for building it, shame on you for making if semi-obscure. Anyway, that's how I came across several hits to ......

45 of 131 | How to Divine What Your Generated ASMX Web Service Proxy Will Be Named - Not long ago, I posted "Why Should You Care About Interfaces in ASMX? Because It Provides Versioning." In that post, I highlighted that the generated proxy will use the binding name. Ron Young emailed me to point out that this does not occur as expected when the web service contains only a single interface. Thanks for the feedback, Ron.  You're right, the behavior is inconsistent.  Let's start with a simple ASMX service.using System; using System.Web.Services; [WebService(Namespace = "http://demo")] public class ClassName : WebService { [WebMethod] public string HelloWorld() { return "Hello World"; } } If you use the Add Web Reference di......

46 of 131 | Microsoft Architect Connections - Harry Pierson Keynote - Today is the day that we host the Microsoft Architect Connections event here in LA at the Omni Hotel.  Harry Pierson started the day off with a bang... no, make that a boom.  I was floored at his keynote presentation.  First, his PowerPoint slide deck was amazing, which were basically a huge picture with a single short phrase.  The first one was really impactful, which was a giant blue power button with the phrase "The Information Age is just getting started."  It wasn't just the slides, it was what he was talking about while the slides were showing.  Each topic was backed by the slide, but you didn't read slides to determine the point.  He spoke about......

47 of 131 | June is Web Services Webcast Month - We have some incredible webcasts to bring you during the month of June. Not only is there a great line-up of topics, there are also some incredible speakers that are presenting. Check out this list! You can find more information on this series on the Windows Vista landing page.  “The Lifetime of a Message in Windows Communication Foundation” Justin Smith, Wintellect 6/1/2006 8:00 AM PST http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?eventID=1032299306&Culture=en-US  “Taking Advantage of TCP/IP Reliability in SOAP” William “Softwaremaker” Tay 6/6/2006 8:00 AM PST http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/eventdetail.aspx?eventID=1032299329&Culture=en-US   “Extendin......

48 of 131 | Use DHTML To Create Your Own Sidebar Gadgets - Looks like all that time I spent in the late 1990’s writing JavaScript is going to pay off, after all. Not only do we have AJAX to thank for resurrecting our JavaScript skillz, but now the Windows Sidebar Gadget architecture uses DHTML as well. The steps to create a gadget are really simple. Create a folder with a suffix of “.gadget” Put an HTML file in the folder Put an XML file in the folder Add your new gadget to the Sidebar. You can see a complete walk-through of creating a Windows Sidebar Gadget online. Looks like it is time to break out the O’Reilly JavaScript book again. ...

49 of 131 | New WS-AtomicTransaction Configuration Tools - Andy Milligan posts on the new WS-AtomicTransaction configuration tools in WCF for the upcoming CTP. ...

50 of 131 | Google Trends - While I am a search.msn.com loyalist (please, please implement searches over newsgroups!), I am secretly fascinated by some of the services published by Google. Yeah, some of the Google services are pretty much rip-offs of other services, but Google Trends is just flat-out freaking cool. The results are interesting from an evangelist point of view. RSS – what you are using to read this post. Atlanta shows up in the top 10? Huh… Here I have completely avoided talking about RSS over the past year. TechEd – a yearly Microsoft conference that occurs in multiple locations worldwide. The top search location is Walldorf, Germany, which completely eclipses all other regions. Code Camp – att......