Articles by Thom Robbins

Introducing ASP 2.0 Master Pages

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 15:00:00 EDT

While meeting with the development staff of a local company we began discussing a project that the CIO had assigned them earlier that morning. The project was actually the first in a series of about 15 planned Web sites scheduled over the next year. Each site was designed to expose sales and marketing collateral to their international reseller community. Their lead developer explained that the first site would contain about a hundred pages, but when complete they expected each site to have several thousand distinct pages. He said, 'Layout control and reusability are key for this project to have any chance of success.'

Introducing the "Web Part Framework" For Microsoft .NET

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 02:45:00 EDT

Last week I had a lunch meeting with the architects of a local company. The meeting began with a review of their current Web-based customer portal. This application had been deployed almost two years ago and had quickly become an important part of their business. Unfortunately, as they explained, the application had been a victim of its own success.

Managing XML Data

Thu, 26 May 2005 08:45:00 EDT

Last week I had lunch with the application manager of a local customer that just completed their enterprise rollout of Office 2003. We had decided to meet and discuss possible ways his team could begin to utilize this deployment. As we sat down he explained that he had been talking to his team and had been investigating a project that he wanted to discuss. He explained that they had a variety of independent business processes that all ran within various Microsoft Office applications. He wanted to know if it were possible to connect these together using XML and the features of Office 2003. He explained that he had discovered Office natively supports XML, which had gotten him to think about ways his developers could take advantage of this feature. He was hoping leveraging this would enable him to connect these independent processes together and begin to share the various data that was collected throughout the enterprise. In this article I will explain, as I did that day, how you can use not only XML but many of the other associated standards such as Extensible Schema Language Templates (XSLT) and Extensible Schema Definitions (XSD) to build and integrate Office-based applications.

VIP Tutorial - The Next Generation of Visual Studio

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST

The next generation of Visual Studio contains the new version of the .NET Framework 2.0 that enables an easier and more robust programming model. In these sessions we will cover these new programming models and how they can be used to develop a variety of applications.

.NET Track - Techniques with Visual Basic.NET

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST

Who says VB.NET programmers can't develop object-oriented applications? This session will show you how you can amaze your friends and co-workers with these techniques.

Introducing SharePoint Web Services

Tue, 07 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST

Last week I attended a follow-up meeting with the staff of a local customer that had just completed a major deployment of SharePoint Services. The results, as the CIO reported to me that morning, were a very excited IT department that had seen a rapid adoption of SharePoint across their global enterprise.

Accessing the Structure with XML

Tue, 06 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

We were listening to a CIO explain how two years ago his company had instituted a mandatory XML policy for the IT staff. Senior management had decided that XML offered too great a competitive advantage for them to pass up using it. The use of XML, he explained, allowed them to quickly change and share their core business structures. The development staff had easily found ways to use XML within their applications.

INETA's Topic Choice: Introducing SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services

Thu, 08 Apr 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Recently I was part of a project team that was completing a .NET design session for the rewrite of several existing business systems. We had just spent a very grueling two days documenting, designing, and arguing over every possible piece of application architecture and feature request we could think of.

Keynote Panel: Asynchronous Web Services: Unlocking the Promise of Mobile Productivity

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 00:00:00 EST

Learn how to take advantage of the proliferation of mobile and wireless devices, in this insightful panel discussion.

FULL DAY TUTORIAL - .NET : The "Smart Client" Perspective

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 00:00:00 EST

FREE* One Day .NET Tutorial Presented by Microsoft - Feb. 24 (*When you Register for a VIP Pass. Guarantee your seat with a Full Conference Pass.) This day-long tutorial focuses on developing and deploying 'smart client' applications - one of the most exciting promises of the information age, introducing the opportunity to provide employees with access to information and the tools to act on that information whenever and wherever they need to. With smart client software, Robbins and Familiar will show, you can obtain both the flexibility and immediacy that comes with online access to data and applications, and the full functionality of traditional client software.

Introduction to Web Services using VS.NET

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

One of the key ideas behind the .NET strategy is the concept of software as a service, or in short, Web Services. This session will explain what a Web service is and provide an overview of its related technologies like XML, SOAP, and UDDI.

Advanced Web Services Using ASP .NET

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

This session we will explore some of the more advanced areas of SOAP in ASP.NET's support for Web services. ASP.NET Web services are the preferred way for Web developers to expose Web services on the Internet.

.NET Remoting Essentials

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

Microsoft .NET Remoting is the .NET technology that allows you to easily and quickly build distributed applications.

Introducing Microsoft InfoPath 2003 Part 2

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 11:58:00 EDT

In Part 1 of this article (XML-J, Vol. 4, issue 6) we looked at creating a solution that used a new product in the Microsoft Office System 2003 called InfoPath. In this installment, I'll show you how to extend the solution created in Part 1 using BizTalk Server 2004.

Introducing Microsoft InfoPath 2003, Part 1

Thu, 22 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

A few weeks ago I was meeting with the CIO of a local health care customer and his IT staff. They were explaining the various technology initiatives and projects that were occurring over the next year. What the CIO was the most proud of was that he had declared this a year of integration projects.

The Basics of Code Access Security

Mon, 24 Feb 2003 00:00:00 EST

Remember the old days when we only installed applications that were purchased from the local computer store? Actually, this was the only way to get the application media. Also, because we had mass-produced disks or tapes this provided an additional sense of security.

Web Services Made Easy

Mon, 18 Nov 2002 00:00:00 EST

A couple of weeks ago, while I was on my way home, my cell phone rang and I was greeted by one of my favorite customers, who sounded like he had had better days. He had just left a meeting with the CIO and received his annual development budget for the following year. The problem was that the CIO was unable to justify a new set of Web service initiatives around a set of just-completed internal Web sites.