Mobile Devices Data Transfer Dotnet

[Colin Graham]

My skills are in VB. Net/SQL Server and i have touched on PDA
development mainly as a tester. i am aware of using webservices for
functionality.

I have been given a task to develop a solution which enables users of
handheld devices to go out to various sites and record information and
send the information back to a head office from site for processing.

Does anyone have any ideas or could give me any help regarding best
methods of connectivity and transferring of data. costs/speed etc....

My basic plan is to use a handheld device with some type of
connectivity (some people have mentioned GPRS but i dont have a
clue)technology to access web services on a server and then transfer
data using an XML dataset. Do i need sql server on the handheld device
???

does anyone have any helpful hints on how to connect to the
webservices, where the webservices should be located as i dont know
much about this aspect. Are thet located on a webserver hosted by a
3rd party or do i have my own server back at the main office.

any help greatly appreciated


Regards

CG

 

[W.G. Ryan eMVP]

GPRS is definitely the way to go, in the states T-Mobile and Cingular are
two providers I've used although I have a personal bias toward t-mobile.

If you're using Datasets, then you don't need sql server CE on the device,
you'll get the data back as a DataSet (XML) and can use it directly. As far
as Web Services and CF development - Casey Chesnut at www.brains-n-brawn.com
probably has the coolest samples of doing some pretty complex stuff (the
whole site is cool - not just the PDA stuff). Similarly, you'll definitely
want to check out the SDF at www.opennetcf.org which is the best CF
reference on the web. The web servcies will be located on a web server
somewhere - that's up to you but if you want to plug into a few samples I
think Casey has some exposed and if not - the GOogle API is a great one to
use.

HTH,

Bill

 

[Colin Graham]

i really appreciate that bill. Its helps get me started. I was
thinking that id bitten off more than i can chew with this one but
once i get engrossed in it il hopefully start to make progress
rapidly.


Thank you.

CG