My latest “book” is out, but this time it's not a book - it's a DVD. About two and a half months ago I started talking with DVPress, a company that makes technical training DVDs, and decided to participate in creating a DVD targetted toward those interested in learning the fundamentals of .NET Web Services. I flew out to Houston at the end of May, and spent two days filming the seven or so hours of training that's on the two-disc DVD. Yesterday I received the 20 author's copies and, naturally, sat down to watch myself. The verdict? I don't like the way my voice sounds (although I already knew that).
Anywho, if you are interested in learning about .NET Web services, or know someone who is, or just want to own a DVD where yours truly is sitting there droning on for seven hours, you can pick up a copy of the DVD at Amazon.com: Beginner's .NET XML Web Services ($29.95, qualified for free shipping). The training covers the basics of Web services, looks at creating and consuming Web services with Visual Studio .NET, explores the SOAP and WSDL standards, and dives into the Web Service Enhancements, showing demos on both UsernameToken authentication and sending / receiving attachments with DIME and WS-Attachments.
Funny side story from the days of filming: the studio is in an office building, and during my filming DVPress was expanding their office space into the neighboring suite. In the other suite were a team of handy-men painting, cleaning, etc. At one point, I'm in the middle of a chapter - the lights are off, save a set of bright lights on me, there's a camera and a cameraman filming, but despite this, a handyman quietly opens the door and walks into the room. He walks behind the camera, over to the side and parallel with me, about six feet away from me (still off-camera, though). The whole time I'm still looking in the camera, delivering the lesson... well, he starts painting a window sill, and he does so half turned so that while he's painting, he's watching me with this quizical look on his face. Very surreal.