Stuart Celarier sat down for lunch with Rory Blythe (two blogs definitely worth reading - Rory's is rather strange, but very entertaining), and they talked about web services. As if you needed one more angle to go at the whole objects vs. datasets argument, enter web services.

Datasets are available over web services, but are hard to work with unless you have a .NET client consuming the service. And of course, that kind of defeats the purpose of the interoperability that web services promises. The more and more I read about Datasets, the more and more happy with our decision to stay away from them I am!

We are currently using forms authentication in my current project. The Tourney Pool Manager also uses forms authentication. Both go against a database to determine if the user is authenticated.

It took me quite a while to figure it out on my own. This article would have made things a lot easier! While the sample they show is flawed in a few ways (the database stores passwords in an unencrypted fashion, and the code is susceptable to a sql injection attack), it is a good demonstration of how to use forms authentication with a database.

Has anyone used Source#? It looks very interesting, if it does what it says it can do. It says it can manage source, plus SQL Server objects. It even comes with a one user license for free. I will probably have to check it out some day.

It says you can store SQL Server objects in it, and generate the script needed to produce it. This would be awesome to use for a database build process if you're building distrubutable software, but still sounds like it has a flaw for the majority of development I do - upgrade scripting! I didn't see anything like that, but it may be in there. 

If you've had experience with it, please tell me in the comments. I'm very intestested to see how others think it works.

Again, I'm finding this much later than I should have, but Frans Bouma has an article talking about different methods to develop your software. Not Agile versus waterfall, but actual architecture, like managers versus a domain model.

It's a good discussion, and it's from the perspective of how O/R mappers fit each model, but it also provides a good description of each approach. He based this on a discussion of O/R Mappers over at the ASP.NET Forums. The thread is interesting - it gets heated at points, and even turns into a discussion of mappers versus code generators! It's amazing how heated some of these types of discussions can get.

It looks like a cell phone and PDA company, HTC, is trying to port Skype to their smart phone, so you could make calls whenever you are within a wifi hotspot. The author mentions that with the 3G network, you wouldn't even need to be in a typical hotspot - you could do it from anywhere.

That would be great. Free calls from your cell phone. I've used Skype for the Pocket PC, and it works fairly well (other than the locking problem they had with the Dell Axims a while ago). 

I'm still waiting for someone to develop a way to seemlessly switch networks. If I could initiate a call on my phone, get in a hotspot, and have it automatically transfer to WiFi, that would be awesome. Add in the ability to switch from calling a land line phone to calling thier Skype device, and now we're talking!

One of the bloggers over at WWWCoder has a post about making the title of an ASP.NET web form dynamic. Basically, you make the title tag run at the server, then declare it as an HtmlGenericControl. Then you can set the InnerText on it, and it works.

While this is good, the point is the last line in the post

"The moment you make any changes to the UI of the ASPX page Visual Studio gets rid of the <runat="server'>"

Just one more reason design time sucks!

In a current project, we solved this problem a different way. We put a custom control inside the title tags, and it works fine. Our control inherits from the Literal control, and allows us to set content in it dynamically by giving it an id it finds in our database. The control inherits from the Literal control, and the only problem design time has given the other developers (I, of course, don't use it) is that it puts a line break before our custom control tag. Other than that, it works fine.

I haven't looked, but does ASP.NET 2.0 have a title tag? That seems like a pretty standard requirement - change the title tag on a page, because it has multiple uses.

I'm way late to the game on this one, but Robert Hensing has a great article explaining why a pass phrase ("Sally sells seashells by the seashore") is way better than a password ("aXUq2eR").

His argument is that with a password of 10 characters or less, it can be hacked using tools that are readily available to hackers. If your password is 14 characters or more, it get's much harder. And by using a familiar phrase, it's still easy to remember!

I guess it's time to change my password...err,  my pass phrase!

Willem Odendaal is looking for feedback on the best book for learning to create server controls. Personally, I've used books one (Developing Microsoft ASP.NET Server Controls and Components) and three (Professional ASP.NET Server Controls). Three is in my car so I can get to it whenever I need it. It is probably the most used book in my library. I read through it in a weekend, and reference it all the time. Of course, I've always been fond of the Wrox books!

Tourney Logic now has blogs! For those that don't know, Tourney Logic is a company that Brian and I started in the spring of 2003. We've grown it through coding at night (usually after 10), and are looking to build a new product/service to be available next year.

With the new blog there, I'll be posting some stuff over there too. And because I have more control (and finally have a .Text blog of my own), I'm moving my link blog there too. Now I can use Kunal's OutlookMT tool again. So far, it's worked great for me!

So I finally have some time. Saturday night, and the wife's in bed. So first things first. Let's review last week's games. I can barely remember them, so commentary may be light! As always, my pick is in bold.

• Houston 7, New York Jets 29 (-7): No surprise here really. The Jet's are one of the best teams in the AFC.
• Cincinnati 27, Baltimore 26 (-6.5): Baltimore could have solidified it's wild card bid with a win, but wasn't able to do so. By losing, Cincinnati's hopes are still alive. And Baltimore's now tied with Denver.
• New England 42 (-8), Cleveland 15: The Patriots continue their dominance.
• Arizona 12, Detroit 26 (-6): Detroit stops it's five game slid. Too bad they have Green Bay next week.
• Tennessee 24, Indianapolis 51 (-11): Indy rolls. And they locked up Harrison for a while. Now, they pay, what? Their whole cap to their top three players? No wonder thier defense is pitiful.
• Minnesota 14 (-7.5), Chicago 24: Just when you think you know what is going on in the NFL, Chicago finds a way to win. And Minnesota, once again, seems to be collapsing late in the season. Oddly enough, the NFC North is the only division with a second place team above .500.
• Buffalo 42 (-3.5), Miami 32: At one point, Buffalo and Miami had similar records. Now, Buffalo is in the wild card hunt.
• Atlanta 0, Tampa Bay 27 (-1.5): Now I know why Tampa Bay was favored.
• San Francisco 6, St. Louis 16 (-10): St. Louis regains the lead in the NFC West, at 6 - 6!
• Carolina 32, New Orleans 21 (-1.5): I went to high school with Muhsin Muhammed!
• Kansas City 34 (-1), Oakland 27: KC gets a win, but loses their stud back for the year. Not that it'll affect their season any. Worst it can do is improve draft position!
• Denver 17, San Diego 20 (-3): The Chargers continue thier cinderella season, as does Brees.
• New York Giants 7, Washington 31 (-2.5): Man. The Giants have fallen fast and far! And even with that, they are still in second place in the East
• Green Bay 17, Philadelphia 47 (-6): Philly is by far the best team in the NFC. The Falcons are second, but after their beating at the hands of the Bucs, that's even in doubt now.
• Pittsburgh 17 (-3), Jacksonville 16: Imagine you have the chance to win the game for your team. Just kick a 60 yard field goal, outside. What would make you miss? Distance, right? Now imagine you get the distance right. But you put it just wide. And I mean just - by what looked like 3 or 4 feet. That's a tough way to lose!
• Dallas 43, Seattle 39 (-7): Down by 10 with two minutes left. I thought this one was over. What a finish! Looks like Parcells still has it. On the touchdown play to go up with 20 seconds left, from the 20 or so, instead of passing to the end zone, he opted to run. And they scored. Great play!

So with that, let's review how I'm doing.

t week to review week 14.