Consume a Web service using VB6 ... Long Life VB6

I was a VB6 developer, and it seems that I will remain for a while even that the major of my work is in C#.

A friend of mine has asked me how to consume a web service using VB6.

I have seen a sample before about using the SOAP Client installed in WinXP and above to call a web service.

Soap Client is a COM component, so it can be used easily in VB6.

So, I opened VS.net and write a simple web service that Add 2 numbers and return the result.

And, amazingly it is very easy to get this job done in VB6. Just a new object of SOAP Cleint and give it the WSDL URL.

Forget the intillesense and call the method and assign the result in a variable.

The problems are coming.

My friend asked: "Is it possible to return a record set from a web service?"
Hmmm …

Things have been tough, I added a new mrthod to the simple web service that return a DataSet. I have expected that SOAP Client will not be able to parse it and just the return may be a string with the XML serialization of the DataSet.

But; this was not right. I have tested the type of the result :

Debug.Print TypeName ( soapClient.GetEmployees )

And the result was of type IXMLDOMNodeList.

Waw !!!

Then we have an instance of an XML object thatwe can traverse its child nodes searching for the value(s) we are searching for.

This is a tough job.

Examining the XML representation of a DataSet, gives a bad feeling … What is the heck this is needed for , Why not just consume that web service using .net !!


It is doable, but is not funny …

SNMP4J - Free Open Source SNMP API for Java

Today I have found SNMP4J - Free Open Source SNMP API for Java ;It looks to be more professional than I had used before

It includes a nice feature [Row-based efficient asynchronous table retrieval with GETBULK] ... so my SnmpGetRow class -that I have inspired its implementation from SnmpWalk- will be of no use any more.

I hope that I will be able to port CLNM to use SNMP4J instead of JoeSnmp

(*) AdventNet Simulation Toolkit help to test SNMP based applications with out a real SNMP Agent.

Unit Testing

How many times we have to develop some sort of applications like a Console or Forms applications to test a class library.

Unit testing is a standard way of testing; .net code can be tested using nUnit

nUnit is a tool that runs the tests you create and show the result is avery organized way.

TestDriven.NET is a tool that enable runnig the tests from within Visual Studio

Read the tutorial on nUnit web site ;it is a fast start

New Job ( 1st Week passed )

One week passed since I joined ITWorx; the last week was full of training and meetings and today I have been announced on the company intranet as a senior software engineer (Sn.SWENG)

I will start my tasks beginning from tomorrow in a distributed .net application.

Wish( Me.BestWishes( ) )

Eclipse Eclipse ... What is going on

Eclipse the IBM initiated open source development IDE and framework has been now in version 3.1
The open source nature acquires tool developers to create plug-ins for GUI building and UML modeling and more

Even major players in development tools are saying that they will use Eclipse as the framework to build the next generation development tools instead of their own technology:_
Borland JBuilder -> Borland Announces JBuilder® Product Roadmap
Macromedia -> Macromedia aligns with Eclipse

another nice open-source project is EasyEclipse which packs many open-source tools and plug-ins along with Eclipse as one package

New Job

Today I have started my new job; Software Engineer in ITWorx
I have met my team members, given a brief about the project I am going to join, and assigned a place to work

I have given a nice email esam.salah@itworx.com and assigned some technologies to start reading and practicing (SPS, .net Remoting, COM+, MSMQ )

I hope I will be good to know all of this in just a week

Car PC !!

Alot of people are putting PCs into their cars

I have got some links here :

http://www.jpstewart.net/CarBlog/
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=26133 <*has many links*>

350Z Video and Navigation Modifications w/ PC

Excel Oddities: Hijri Dates

Excel Oddities: Hijri Dates

In Excel XP (2002) any cell with text statring with A1-1 will be interpreted into a hijri date !!

ASP.NET on Linux

The Code Project - Visual Studio .NET IDE for Linux! - Product Showcase

Extend your career by this very nice project; a VS.net plugin that can host .net application on Linux.

And even develop all the stuff on your windows machine using a Free Virtual machine

Helpmaster - HTMLHelp, HTML, Help

Helpmaster - HTMLHelp, HTML, Help
the world's largest selection of WinHelp, HTMLHelp and HTML related files and hints

Bug Tracking Software

Bug Tracking Software

NirSoft - freeware utilities: password recovery, system utilities, desktop utilities

NirSoft - freeware utilities: password recovery, system utilities, desktop utilities

How to enhance MTSIC

Search admin for mtsic:
* Data and Time
* Who is the searcher
* Search result (count)
* Did he ordered or not

Processing

Processing 1.0 (BETA)
is a programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and sound. It is used by students, artists, designers, architects, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists and designers as an open-source alternative to commercial software tools in the same domain.

May I use it some day for any creative idea