WS, web services

3751 of 3778 | Generate Dynamic Maps and Flight Routes with XML and SVG - This code sample demonstrates how over 30 meg of XML data containing world mapping points, airport locations, and flight routes can be dynamically parsed and used to generate Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) images. Because the images are vector-based they can be zoomed in and out without affecting the image quality. The example also shows how Web Services can be integrated into SVG. Airports shown on the map can be selected to view temperature and wind data (when available). The SVG image was initially generated by using XSLT but due to the size of the 3 XML documents involved, XSLT was abandoned in favor of using the XmlTextReader and XmlTextWriter. These two classes provide an extreme......

3752 of 3778 | InfoPath: How To Populate a List Control With SharePoint Users - Since the Service Pack 1 Preview of InfoPath it is really simple to fill for example a drop-down list box on a InfoPath form with data that is stored in a SharePoint list. But it’s not quite straight forward to fill that drop-down list box with all the users of a SharePoint site. Although this is quite easy to accomplish in a custom SharePoint list by creating a Lookup column and indicating that you want to get User Information. But (almost) nothing is impossible with InfoPath, so let’s give it a try! First of all: how can we get a hold of a list with all the users of a specific SharePoint site Well it happens to be that SharePoint exposes quite a lot of functionality through a web serv......

3753 of 3778 | InfoPath: How To Populate a List Control With SharePoint Users - Since the Service Pack 1 Preview of InfoPath it is really simple to fill for example a drop-down list box on a InfoPath form with data that is stored in a SharePoint list. But it’s not quite straight forward to fill that drop-down list box with all the users of a SharePoint site. Although this is quite easy to accomplish in a custom SharePoint list by creating a Lookup column and indicating that you want to get User Information. But (almost) nothing is impossible with InfoPath, so let’s give it a try! First of all: how can we get a hold of a list with all the users of a specific SharePoint site? Well it happens to be that SharePoint exposes quite a lot of functionality t......

3754 of 3778 | A year already?! Where do I go from here... - It turns out that I`ve been blogging for over a year already! I was first introduced to this by a co-worker Darren Neimke, we`ve both since left that company and moved on to other seperate jobs. I`m still trying to find my `direction` for this blog... at this stage I`m thinking I should concentrate on XML technologies, C#, .NET, Flash and SQL as those are my main areas of expertise. Last night while lying in bed awake I decided to write a list of article topics I would like to write, here`s what I came up with: XML Introduction moving from MSXML to .NET how to use XmlDocument, XslTransform, XPathDocument etc Intermediate topics (suggestions welcome) Advanced topics (suggestions welcome) ......

3755 of 3778 | A year already?! Where do I go from here... - It turns out that I've been blogging for over a year already! I was first introduced to this by a co-worker Darren Neimke, we've both since left that company and moved on to other seperate jobs. I'm still trying to find my 'direction' for this blog... at this stage I'm thinking I should concentrate on XML technologies, C#, .NET, Flash and SQL as those are my main areas of expertise. Last night while lying in bed awake I decided to write a list of article topics I would like to write, here's what I came up with: XML Introduction moving from MSXML to .NET how to use XmlDocument, XslTransform, XPathDocument etc Intermediate topics (suggestions welcome) Advanced topics (suggestio......

3756 of 3778 | Groking WS-Addressing - Steve Maine writes about his eureka moment with the WS-Addressing spec.  The basic ideas behind it is that it`s a good idea to write the address (e.g. put the address in the SOAP headers) on the front of an envelope rather than only writing the name on the envelope and telling the postman the address (e.g. leaving some address information in the SOAP envelope and some on the transport protocol headers). The other useful aspect of the WS-Addressing spec is the idea of the .  This is an XML node that can contain any information a client or server require.  It`s like a cookie mechanism for SOAP messages.  Omri talks more about it and shows how it`s useful ......

3757 of 3778 | Groking WS-Addressing - Steve Maine writes about his eureka moment with the WS-Addressing spec.  The basic ideas behind it is that it`s a good idea to write the address (e.g. put the address in the SOAP headers) on the front of an envelope rather than only writing the name on the envelope and telling the postman the address (e.g. leaving some address information in the SOAP envelope and some on the transport protocol headers). The other useful aspect of the WS-Addressing spec is the idea of the .  This is an XML node that can contain any information a client or server require.  It`s like a cookie mechanism for SOAP messages.  Omri talks more about it and shows how it`s useful ......

3758 of 3778 | Using SharePoint Web Services: SharePoint Explorer Example Tool - One of the nice things about SharePoint is that there are many ways of accessing the data. The most obvious is of course the web interface, but to accomplish thight integration with for example Office 2003, SharePoint offers a bunch of web services. These web services provide identically functionality as you get using the web interface; everything you can do in the web interface is possible using the web services! A nice example of the use of these web services is the integration with Office 2003. When you open a Office 2003 document that`s stored in SharePoint, you`ll get some extra information about the SharePoint site. The MSDN library has a list of all the web services that are availabl......

3759 of 3778 | Using SharePoint Web Services: SharePoint Explorer Example Tool - One of the nice things about SharePoint is that there are many ways of accessing the data. The most obvious is of course the web interface, but to accomplish thight integration with for example Office 2003, SharePoint offers a bunch of web services. These web services provide identically functionality as you get using the web interface; everything you can do in the web interface is possible using the web services! A nice example of the use of these web services is the integration with Office 2003. When you open a Office 2003 document that's stored in SharePoint, you'll get some extra information about the SharePoint site. The MSDN library has a list of all the web services that are av......

3760 of 3778 | How-to: Customize the Generated Web Service Test Page - Did you ever wonder how you could replace the default generated test/help page of a web service by your own page? This could be useful in a number of situations: you could use your company lay-out, provide contact information or documentation, ... First of all: how is the default test page generated? There is a single ASPX file that takes care of this: DefaultWsdlHelpGenerator.aspx, which is located in the X:\<WindowsDir>\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\CONFIG directory (for the .NET Framework V1.1). It's possible to alter this file, but be aware it will have an effect for all web services running on that machine! Changing the test page for all the web services on the machine ......

3761 of 3778 | How-to: Customize the Generated Web Service Test Page - Did you ever wonder how you could replace the default generated test/help page of a web service by your own page This could be useful in a number of situations: you could use your company lay-out, provide contact information or documentation, ... First of all: how is the default test page generated There is a single ASPX file that takes care of this: DefaultWsdlHelpGenerator.aspx, which is located in the X:\\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\CONFIG directory (for the .NET Framework V1.1). It`s possible to alter this file, but be aware it will have an effect for all web services running on that machine! Changing the test page for all the web services on the machine is probably not want we wa......

3762 of 3778 | Why XSD is not a type system - DouglasP is finally making good on his promise to tell us more about Whidbey’s approach to schema versioning using the XmlFormatter. Well, almost; he’s just tantalizing us with some rhetorical questions. It’s so weird the way timing works in the blogosphere; I just finished writing up a whole bunch of docs for work on a lot of the basic ideas he’s asking people to think about. Along those lines: One of the hardest things to grok about web services is the notion of “type”. We know that services share schemas, not types, but what does that mean, really? What is a “type”? Does that meaning change when we think about XSD t......

3763 of 3778 | Fun with InfoPath: Dynamically Populate a List by Using a Webservice with a Parameter - Some time ago I started to explore InfoPath, so far it was a pleasant journey. Everbody (including myself) seems to be requesting an user-control version of InfoPath so you can have InfoPath forms in your own Smart Client applications. This would be really great, top of the bill would be integration in Visual Studio.NET, but maybe that's a little bit too wishfull-thinking. Another nice feature would be a free version of InfoPath, without the functionality to create and edit forms. Like there is a free Acrobat Reader and a commercial Acrobat Writer. Microsoft says it's hearing these requests, but has anyone already an idea if these features will be available? Anyway, InfoPath is great when ......

3764 of 3778 | Fun with InfoPath: Dynamically Populate a List by Using a Webservice with a Parameter - Some time ago I started to explore InfoPath, so far it was a pleasant journey. Everbody (including myself) seems to be requesting an user-control version of InfoPath so you can have InfoPath forms in your own Smart Client applications. This would be really great, top of the bill would be integration in Visual Studio.NET, but maybe that's a little bit too wishfull-thinking. Another nice feature would be a free version of InfoPath, without the functionality to create and edit forms. Like there is a free Acrobat Reader and a commercial Acrobat Writer. Microsoft says it's hearing these requests, but has anyone already an idea if these features will be available? Anyway, InfoPath is great when ......

3765 of 3778 | Consuming Webservices over HTTPS (SSL) - When Webservices are used, a common concern is security: SOAP messages are transferred in plain text over the network, so anyone with a sniffer could intercept the SOAP message and read it. In my opinion this could happen also to binary data, but probably it requires a little bit more hacker skills. So a solution is to use HTTPS (SSL) instead of HTTP, so the communication is encrypted. To accomplish this, you need to get and install a certificate (issued by a Certificate Authority) on your webserver. In a production environment you would buy a certificate from Verisign or another well known CA, or you would install your own CA, which is a component of Windows Server. If you only want to pla......

3766 of 3778 | Consuming Webservices over HTTPS (SSL) - When Webservices are used, a common concern is security: SOAP messages are transferred in plain text over the network, so anyone with a sniffer could intercept the SOAP message and read it. In my opinion this could happen also to binary data, but probably it requires a little bit more hacker skills. So a solution is to use HTTPS (SSL) instead of HTTP, so the communication is encrypted. To accomplish this, you need to get and install a certificate (issued by a Certificate Authority) on your webserver. In a production environment you would buy a certificate from Verisign or another well known CA, or you would install your own CA, which is a component of Windows Server. If you only want to pla......

3767 of 3778 | Tim Bray / RSS Bandit strikes again - Tim Bray, of XML co-creator fame, was just interviewed by News.Com. In the article, he gives a good overview of why XML was created and the possible solutions that were available at the time. Few other things of note: Positive things to say about Microsoft and XML. He likes Visual Studio .NET`s easy integration with web services. I appreciate the fact that he mentions he`s seen the Office 2003 XML schemas. There`s a lot of FUD out there regarding the openness of the XML with regard to Office 2003. For those of you non-believers, start believing. Apparently fee......

3768 of 3778 | Tim Bray / RSS Bandit strikes again - Tim Bray, of XML co-creator fame, was just interviewed by News.Com. In the article, he gives a good overview of why XML was created and the possible solutions that were available at the time. Few other things of note: Positive things to say about Microsoft and XML. He likes Visual Studio .NET`s easy integration with web services. I appreciate the fact that he mentions he`s seen the Office 2003 XML schemas. There`s a lot of FUD out there regarding the openness of the XML with regard to Office 2003. For those of you non-believers, start believing. Apparently fee......

3769 of 3778 | Changes in the works... - Sam welcomed me back to the blogosphere... Your points are well taken. People here are very aware of the fact that developers may well look to Microsoft.com`s services as an example to emulate, so they try to make sure they do the right thing. In this case, there`s a been a lot of confusion around the fact that WS-Security really offers levels of protection and, in this case, the level required is pretty low. That said, the guys who built the service are working on the details for replay detection. I`ll keep you posted as I find out more... In the same thread, Dare commented that the use of W......

3770 of 3778 | Using UsernameToken with the new microsoft.com Web service - I spent my summer deep in an engineering project, the purpose of which will come to light in coming months. Now that the first phase of that work is complete, I have time to start posting again. And what better place to start than by answering questions raised by Simon Fell`s recent post about the use of WS-Security with the new Microsoft.com web services. Some of the guys at microsoft.com spent their summer working on the server-side infrastructure they need in place to support production Web service. They recently launched a prototype service that`s intended to vet the plumbing. To use the service, develope......

3771 of 3778 | I quit! - I quit my job this week! I will be starting with my new employer as soon as I am released from my current contract (I'm meant to give 4 weeks notice, but my new employer wants me ASAP). It will be an interesting move for me, as I will be going from a VB.NET shop over to C# (which I am fluent in), and I will finally get to work with Flash MX again (embedded in WinForms). I'll also get to work with PocketPC and Tablets, using Web Services, BizTalk, SQL Server and more! I will also be changing from writing Intranet/Government type apps to ones specialised for the Hospital industry, which should prove interesting and give me more to play with and be excited about. Once I'm settled in at the ......

3772 of 3778 | I quit! - I quit my job this week! I will be starting with my new employer as soon as I am released from my current contract (I`m meant to give 4 weeks notice, but my new employer wants me ASAP). It will be an interesting move for me, as I will be going from a VB.NET shop over to C# (which I am fluent in), and I will finally get to work with Flash MX again (embedded in WinForms). I`ll also get to work with PocketPC and Tablets, using Web Services, BizTalk, SQL Server and more! I will also be changing from writing Intranet/Government type apps to ones specialised for the Hospital industry, which should prove interesting and give me more to play with and be excited about. Once I`m settled in at the new......

3773 of 3778 | Technical Content part #2 - Well, I got some good feedback from my last post, seems like I've finally got some readers! :) I've since seen some really well done presentations. One that currently rates as #1 on my list was the .NET Compact Framework (DEV308), extremely well done. I didn't think I would get much out of it, as I've been 'playing' with .NETCF for a while now, and had a pretty good grasp... but after hearing Peter Stanski talk, I'm almost wishing I could go to his UNI classes! He had a lot of material to cover (next year give this man 2 or 3 session slots!!), and although the early stuff was an introduction I didn't feel like he was insulting my intelligence like I have at other sessions. He provided a ......

3774 of 3778 | Enumerated types in XSD and .NET - Its well-known that XSD is not 100% isomorphic to C#. There are certain constructs (like xs:choice) that just dont have an equivalent representation in C#. There are also some C# constructs (like enums) that dont have an exact semantic equivalent in XSD. In C#, an enum is a set of named constants. Each explicitly enumerated name has an equivalent integral representation, e.g. the enumerated name OrderStatus.Shipped really is just an alias for the integral value of 16. In C#, enums are often used as a way of contextualizing magic numbers that downstream legacy systems depend on. This practice improves the readability of......

3775 of 3778 | Navigation menu with "wow"-factor - I was reading DonXML's post about "Cool Tabs" and it made me think of some experiments I did a while ago with Flash and it's transparency feature. If you set your Flash movie to a width & height of 100% and leave it's scale on the default setting (show all), give it an absolute position of 0,0 and a z-layer of being above the rest of the page and lastly use the transparency option, then you have everything you need to try this out. One of the things I did with this was create a small character that could be dragged around the page and minimized (simmilar to the Microsoft Office Assistant), when a non-drag click was done the character would animate and provide interactive option......

3776 of 3778 | Navigation menu with "wow"-factor - I was reading DonXML's post about "Cool Tabs" and it made me think of some experiments I did a while ago with Flash and it's transparency feature. If you set your Flash movie to a width & height of 100% and leave it's scale on the default setting (show all), give it an absolute position of 0,0 and a z-layer of being above the rest of the page and lastly use the transparency option, then you have everything you need to try this out. One of the things I did with this was create a small character that could be dragged around the page and minimized (simmilar to the Microsoft Office Assistant), when a non-drag click was done the character would animate and provide interactive option......

3777 of 3778 | InfoPath - all hype, or not? What are the alternatives? - There's a lot of talk going around right now about InfoPath, many are hailing it as the next big thing for Web Services. While I'm sure there's lots of hype out there with little facts, it is clear that not everyone is happy about InfoPath. Something I wanted to talk about is this: What about the alternatives? It hasn't gotten nearly as much press, but Altova's Authentic does most of what InfoPath is promising, but is offered for FREE , comes in many flavors (Windows App, ActiveX control, .NET Server Control, Placeholder for Microsoft CMS Server), and is pretty cool in what it can do. I'm a big supporter of Microsoft, their applications are the core of my job, but I try not to b......

3778 of 3778 | InfoPath - all hype, or not? What are the alternatives? - There's a lot of talk going around right now about InfoPath, many are hailing it as the next big thing for Web Services. While I'm sure there's lots of hype out there with little facts, it is clear that not everyone is happy about InfoPath. Something I wanted to talk about is this: What about the alternatives? It hasn't gotten nearly as much press, but Altova's Authentic does most of what InfoPath is promising, but is offered for FREE , comes in many flavors (Windows App, ActiveX control, .NET Server Control, Placeholder for Microsoft CMS Server), and is pretty cool in what it can do. I'm a big supporter of Microsoft, their applications are the core of my job, but I try not to b......