I thought I would post about the stepped I just followed to get Dynamics NAV working under SQL 2005 all on the same machine

With help (thanks Ryan),  I found you need to change the startup options for SQL 2005,  so that NAV can run correctly.

You need to add the startup flag to SQL 2005 adding - -T 4616

This is done from SQL Server Configuration Manager -

Restart SQL Server for this change to be applied.

To get the windows integrated security working you need to copy the file xp_ndo.dll from the installation disc.     Note that this is a 32bit version.    A 64 bit version is available on partner source

Copy the file xp_ndo.dll to c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Binn\xp_ndo.dll'

In SQL Server you need to run the following script

USE master
EXEC sp_addextendedproc xp_ndo_enumusergroups, 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Binn\xp_ndo.dll'
GO
GRANT EXECUTE
ON [xp_ndo_enumusergroups]
TO PUBLIC
GO

USE master
EXEC sp_addextendedproc xp_ndo_enumusersids, 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Binn\xp_ndo.dll'
GO
GRANT EXECUTE
ON [xp_ndo_enumusersids]
TO PUBLIC
GO

And that's about it.   Here's NAV 5.0 running.

Nice little site...

http://dotnettipoftheday.org/tips/explorer-in-tools-menu.aspx

I've been working on a mobile project for Capespan. This application is being used for the mobile inspection of containers as the are unloaded from ships, lorries and planes.

I'm very proud of this solution as its one of the first I've been involved with that uses photographs taken on the mobile devices as an important element of the quality recording process.    It all works nicely over the Internet using GPRS and WIFI using SQL Compact merge replication.   The added complication is that the back-end ERP database is in Oracle.  So not only do we have to replicate from SQL server to SQL Compact (on the devices);  but also from SQL Server to Oracle.   All of this replication is of course bi-directional.   

Check out the full case study, on Anglia's web-site over at -

http://www.angliabs.com/solutions/Solutions_Capespan.html

I keep getting asked about the best route to go for mobile development in managed code.

So here are your options as I see it -

1) Deliver it by web browser?

    if you have the luxury of good reliable network connection this may be the route to go.    However tread carefully you have limited/no access to device features like barcode readers,GPS, cameras etc.   This is a nice option if you need to quickly get a solution targeting a wide range of devices to a large audience.    Mobile Silverlight might make this option more more viable in the future.

So if you've decided that a browser based solution is not appropriate then lets move on.   On the assumption that we need to place code on the device using the .Net Compact Framework.

The .Net Compact Framework is a great bit of kit designed to offer the C# or VB.Net developer with an easy route for producing mobile solutions.   However your then faced with the question of how you receive and post back data from your server.   This presents our final two options.

2) Call business logic functionality via a web-service?   This is a great option, if you need have a network connectivity.   You can call web-services on a central server.   However you have to mitigate against situations where the network is not available.    This is also a brilliant if you absolutely need to send updates back from your line of business applications in real-time.   I find this great, if you need to synchronise tasks,  like a forklift operator needs to be called when a pack-house guy has put a pallet down on the warehouse floor.

3)  Use SQL Compact and Merge Replication?    This is great if you need your application to keep on working the whole time and periodically send updates to/from a central server.    However you can't guarantee when the mobile application will be in range of the network so synchronising activities as described in option 2 becomes difficult.   Merge replication is cool but requires a little more thought for how you structure your application as you have to consider just how much data is practical to fit on the device and how long it will take to synchronise changes.

So, I know I've greatly simplified things and you may disagree with my 3 choice strategy with many a hybrid solution.  However this is the process I go through whenever I look at LOB projects.

Does what it says on the tin

http://silverlight.net/Samples/2b1/SilverlightControls/run/default.html

So, as you all know,  I do lots of work using the .Net Compact Framework.

However,   I was reminded today about how mobile web pages still make lots of sense for lots of different line of business applications.

At Anglia (my day job), we have consultants, developers and a salesforce pretty much out of the office all the time.   We use our mobile portal delivering content from SharePoint, Dynamics NAV and CRM  with mapping data from Virtual Earth.

It works great letting any one of our staff do any of the following from their mobile device -

Timesheet
Expenses
Mileage Capture
CRM customer lookup - including maps to customer locations
Helpdesk
Leave, booking holiday
Raising purchase orders/requests
Company news

etc...

The application to achieve this was built end to end in about 2 weeks elapsed.

Full case study at, with a pretty compelling ROI story at  -

http://www.angliabs.com/solutions/Solutions_ABS_Mobileportal.html

This is what I found out this morning.  I'm running Small Business Server 2003,   to get Silverlight 2 applications hosted on your server.

First install ASP.Net 3.5 at

Here

Usual warnings about this being pre-release software apply, but next you need to install ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions preview at

Here

Finally,  if you re not using Vista or Windows Server 2008,  you need to register the MIME type in IIS.

As follows -

Job done.      As soon I can come up with some creative ideas, I will be posting up some sample applications.

Its happening and its happening right now...

http://visitmix.com/blogs/News/Stimulant/

On the 25th of March,  I'm presenting a session on Mobile Line of Business at Microsoft Cambridge Research.

I hear they even give all who attend pizza.   (bonus)

Its a free event (including the pizza),  registration is here -

http://www.nxtgenug.net/ViewEvent.aspx?EventID=122

Its an evening event, so shouldn't get in the way of your working day.

So it has to happen soon...   We'll be using our mobile devices with Silverlight plugins to connect to rich content over the Internet.

In preparation, I'm in the process of building/learning a Silverlight  2 version of this blog (just for the fun of it).

So,  as I go through,  I've come across a number of technical challenges.    The first,  is that I've been using my laptop to develop I simply I want to pull the RSS feed from my server to display nicely on a Silverlight powered web-page.

So to overcome challenge number 1,  we need to let Silverlight cross domain call and pickup the RSS file (i.e from laptop to server).    To achieve this you need to have a file called crossdomain.xml, sitting in the root of your website.   Mine looks like this.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy
  SYSTEM "http://www.macromedia.com/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd">
<cross-domain-policy>
  <allow-access-from domain="*" />
</cross-domain-policy>

This is clearly a Macromedia format,  but Silverlight 2 recognises these files and lets you pull content from an Internet/intranet domain as long as it contains one of these files -

I got full details from here

http://www.crossdomainxml.org/

+ my inspiration for getting started with Silverlight, has been from Scott Guthrie's fab blog and specifically this tutorial (sorted) -

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/02/22/first-look-at-silverlight-2.aspx

I've just come across this in Visual Studio 2008.

Rather than typing a long winded property definition.

private int age=0;

public int Age
{
  get
  {
    return age;
  }
set
{
     age=value;
}
}

You now can just type

public int Age {get; set;}

Casio VL1.   Da Da Da...

http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/

So, I think considering the announcements at MIX 08,  we'd all better start learning Silverlight.

Head start at

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E0BAE58E-9C0B-4090-A1DB-F134D9F095FD&displaylang=en