VB.NET, SQL Server 2005 CE, and a Path to Mobility

I’m on the path!

This software development thing is really a blast. I started out two weeks ago with a completely different idea about all the things I would be learning over the next month or so… and even now, the landscape is changing daily.

That’s not a bad thing though. After a near-full day of digesting chapter 7 of Microsoft Mobile Developers Handbook, I’m feeling much empowered and finally on the right track! It’s not the track I would have expected… but it’s the right track – which is really all that matters.

TODO:

It appears that most of the hassle with getting full connectivity between mobile and server-side data lies with some nasty-complex.(forMe) networking.

It’s unfortunate that my networking knowledge is lacking in the areas of IIS, Web Services, and VPNs (despite listening to the Hamachi episode of Steve Gibson’s awesome podcast “Security Now” — many times). It’s unfortunate because all of those things (somehow (I don’t know yet)) need to work together to make the mobile connectivity dream a reality.

So that’s where I am right now.

I just found a few good tutorials on MSDN showing two crucial aspects of the networking ground work. I haven’t gone through them yet – but they look promising.

Remote Data Access Synchronization with SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition and Visual Basic.NET

Summary: In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a Microsoft Windows Forms application using Microsoft Visual Basic.NET that synchronizes data between a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database and a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition database using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition Remote Data Access (RDA). (48 printed pages)

AND

Configuring Internet Information Services for SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition Remote Data Access and Merge Replication

Summary: Learn how to configure Internet Information Services (IIS) for both remote data access (RDA) and merge replication, two technologies that you can use to synchronize data between a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 back-end database and a local Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition database. This tutorial covers everything that you must do to configure a server for data synchronization using RDA. To perform data synchronization with merge replication, you must also configure SQL Server 2005. See the Books Online documentation, “Implementing Replication,” for information on how to configure SQL Server 2005 for merge replication with SQL Server Compact Edition. (24 printed pages)