At Your Service

Nice sample of WCF client using RESTful Twitter API

steveres — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:56:00 GMT

Check out Kirk Allen Evans posting about how to create a Twitter client using its RESTful API and WCF. I'm a sucker for simplicity and this hits the spot.

Windows Live Messenger Facebook Application

steveres — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:53:00 GMT

Here's a very cool app on Facebook that leverages the Windows Live APIs to tie the two populations together. You probably already have an ID in both, so this links the two. Wonder when someone will do the same for Linked In?

Silverlight 2.0 and WCF sample

steveres — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:53:00 GMT

Want to create a nice Silverlight 2.0 app using WCF services for data? Check out Bob Familiar's post for code and links to great resources.

Source Code for Essential WCF

steveres — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 22:10:00 GMT

Many people have asked us for the source code used in Essential WCF. We've cleansed it, re-tested (again!) and published it to our page on InformIT under the downloads tab. Feel free to use and experiment as you learn this way-cool technology.

Job Posting: Web Engineer for Emergent Music

steveres — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:48:00 GMT

A good friend a mine, Barry Kurland, just joined Goombah, a company that connects people to their music and like-minded people. They have big plans and are looking to hire a top-notch web engineer. Job description attached; let me know if you're interested.

What's in Essential WCF?

steveres — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:31:00 GMT

Now that Essential WCF is out, we're seeing interest from many places. Rich, Chris and I were contacted by InformIT to do an interview and talk about the book. Separately, I'm hearing from readers looking to do big and small things with the technology. And here in Boston this week, we have a sold out Pluralsight course that covers WCF and WF. Good fun!

Web Service Registry codebase

steveres — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:11:00 GMT

Deploying a SOA requires a good registry for services, if not supporting repository. Microsoft has big plans for both and other vendors, like SOA Software and AmberPoint, have products in the market today. If you're game for building your own, there are two interesting approaches. First is a kit built by some Microsoft consultants, called Managed Service Ending, that you can download from Codeplex. Second is a nice article by Boris Lublinsky that describes a relatively thin layer over a relational model, with both design time and runtime components.

Using SyndicationFeed to display photos from spaces.live.com

steveres — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:21:00 GMT

The SyndicationFeed class from System.ServiceModel.Syndicatation makes it easy to work with feeds and extensions. The code below uses an RSS feed from space.live.com to show photo albums on a page. Of course there are many ways to consume RSS with and w/o code, but the WCF enhancements with .NET 3.5 are a nice new trick. You can see the result at http://www.steveres.com/SpacesPics.aspx

r = XmlReader.Create("http://yournamegoeshere.spaces.live.com/photos/feed.rss");
albums = SyndicationFeed.Load(r);
r.Close();
foreach (SyndicationItem album in albums.Items)
{

// album.links[0].URI points to this album page on spaces.live.com
// album.Summary (not shown) is an HTML block with thumbnails of the album pics
cell.Text= string.Format("<a href='{0}'>{1}</a>", album.Links[0].Uri, album.Title.Text);
albumRSS = GetAlbumRSS(album);
r = XmlReader.Create(albumRSS);
photos = SyndicationFeed.Load(r);
r.Close();
foreach (SyndicationItem photo in photos.Items)
{
// photo.Summary is an HTML block with a thumbnail of the pic
cell.Text = string.Format("{0}", photo.Summary.Text);
}

}
//
// helper to extract the feed to one album from the albums feed
//
private string GetAlbumRSS(SyndicationItem album)
{

string url = "";
foreach (SyndicationElementExtension ext in album.ElementExtensions)
if (ext.OuterName == "itemRSS") url = ext.GetObject<string>();
return (url);

}

Consumer Web API is easy!

steveres — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:14:00 GMT

I’ve been experimenting with the consumer Web API (Amazon, flickr, Google, facebook, Virtual Earth) and WOW is it easy! Takes just a few hours to learn an API, register for dev keys and start building apps. Samples at steveres.com. Funny how easy things can be when you remove enterprise class requirements like SSO, secure messaging and SLAs.

Looking for an amazing job at Microsoft?

steveres — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 01:22:00 GMT

The Microsoft Technology Centers are hiring in the US! We have immediate openings for talented .NET Architects in NYC and Irvine, CA. We also have an opening for a SQL/BI expert in Atlanta GA. The pace is fast and the work is demanding, but we get to design and prove the biggest, baddest apps around. Interested? Drop me a note - steveres at Microsoft.