Most people would agree that RSS and ATOM feeds have become as important to the Web as HTML, well almost anyway.  One of the things that we as developers have to consider in our applications is how to report: Data, events, etc., to our users.  We typically choose the route of building reports, or sending emails, occasionally we will build KPI-based Executive Dashboards.  But, there is another option that we rarely think of: RSS/ATOM Feeds. 

For example: Administrators (who are end-users in a sense) are often trying to keep track of a variety of data points about the network: Drive Space on network drives, Email Storage levels, Printers going down, etc.  And typically, they use a variety of tools to inform them about these types of data, mostly (not always) static reports of some sort, delivered on a routine basis.  Well, if you are a .NET Developer you could build RSS/ATOM feeds that constantly keep them appraised of Events, Data, etc.  Because, .NET can access so much information in the Computing Environment, you have the ability to peer into those systems and pull reports (think logs, drive space, files being dropped into a folder, SQL Server events, etc.).

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That’s where the new RSS/ATOM features build in Windows Communication Foundation comes in, and hence the lab that I am giving you a link to.  As you will see it’s pretty straightforward and easy to do with WCF and the lab will take you less than 90 minutes!

Here’s a link to the FREE lab: Click here

~Robert Shelton