.NET My Services

The original list of web services that MS was going to publish is below. Now at microsoft.com/myservices, you don't quite get the feeling that all these services are still on the list. The main one they talk about of course is Passport.

.NET Profile	Name, nickname, special dates, picture, address.
.NET Contacts	Electronic relationships/address book.
.NET Locations	Electronic and geographical location and rendezvous.
.NET Alerts	Alert subscription, management, and routing.
.NET Presence	Online, offline, busy, free, which device(s) to send alerts to.
.NET Inbox	Inbox items like e-mail and voice mail, including existing mail systems.
.NET Calendar	Time and task management.
.NET Documents	Raw document storage.
.NET ApplicationSettings	Application settings.
.NET FavoriteWebSites	Favorite URLs and other Web identifiers.
.NET Wallet	Receipts, payment instruments, coupons, and other transaction records.
.NET Devices	Device settings, capabilities.
.NET services	Services provided for an identity.
.NET Lists	General purpose lists.
.NET Categories	A way to group lists.

IntelliSense upgrade for Visual Studio .NET

Stole these from Kral's blog. Adding your component help into the VS.NET help system.

Extending .NET Help

Download the tool

Remoting - Private Object per Caller

Remoting server object with "factory" pattern.

The only two settings in WellKnownObjectMode enum are SingleCall (every incoming message gets a new instance) and Singleton, (all incoming messages get the same instance). Neither of these are the same pattern as a standard remotable COM object, where each unique client caller instantiates and keeps a unique remote object.

To simulate this, you can implement a factory pattern. A class function (sometimes static) that creates new instances of the remotable object and returns their interface.

(See sample code in link).

	public class CorporateAccountantExamFactory : 

		MarshalByRefObject, IAccountantExamFactory

		{

			public IAccountantTest CreateAccountTestInstance()

			{

				return new CorporateAccountantTest();

			}

		}

	}



	TcpServerChannel chl = 

		new TcpServerChannel(9988);

	ChannelServices.RegisterChannel(chl);



	RemotingConfiguration.

	RegisterWellKnownServiceType(

		typeof(CorporateAccountantExamFactory),	// Name

		"IExamFactory", // What the outside world calls it

		WellKnownObjectMode.SingleCall); // How to contact

Why my Typed Dataset Wasn't Working

xxxAdapter::Fill( ds, "TABLENAME" ); // need 2nd param !!!

Argh! I thought the IDE was supposed to make using typed datasets so easy! Despite the fact that I was forcing them into a console app, I should have picked up on this earlier.

The key to filling up a typed dataset is the 2nd parameter to xxxAdapter::Fill! If you don't specify a table name, the data from the select command will be put into a new table that the runtime creates -- the data will NOT be in the "type-safe" table that the typed dataset has created for you.

Details: In the typed dataset generated code, there's an InitClass method that calls Tables.Add( tableXXX ). This creates an empty table in the dataset that should eventually get populated with the data. The 2nd parameter to Fill must match the name of the table already created by the typed dataset code. This is usually the name of the table you pointed to when creating the typed dataset. The embedded DataTable derived class in the dataset code passes this argument to the baseclass upon construction.

Cool Attributes

Came across these in the Typed Dataset generated code. May have use for them sometime in the future.

• System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough - tells source code debuggers not to step into this function. (note: user can put breakpoint in this code)
  
• System.ComponentModel.Browsable - describes whether to make the property or event visible on the property window
  

Populating a dataset from multiple data adapters