Serializing & Deserializing XML with .NET and Podcasting 101 - Part 1 (Free)
Podcasting is either the Next Big Thingtm, or the buzzword of the day ... destined to go the way of the dodo. But all signals are pointing to podcasting being huge. With the FCC breathing down the necks of traditional broadcasters, many are looking to alternate venues to transmit their content. While some big names are moving to satelite radio (a costly venture to be sure), the rest of us are left behind on this big ball of dirt, rocks, and water.
Enter the podcast -- the internet's media "broadcasting" format. While it is mostly being used for audio right now, there's nothing stopping the podcast from linking to other media such as video. This opens up tons of opportunities for media publishing that you have the opportunity to be a part of right now ... and the technical requirements for creating a podcast are tools that you, as web developers, already have/use (mostly).
This article goes through the basics of Podcasting, and what it takes to start your very own Podcast.
Serializing & Deserializing XML with .NET
You will often have to deal with XML when writing .NET code. The .NET Framework SDK has a command line tool called XSD.exe which greatly facilitates this. With it, you can generate code that you can use to read and edit XML files. This tutorial shows you how to use XSD.exe to generate code straight from XML files.
The techniques discussed in the article works with any XML format. You can easily apply this methodology to an RSS file and create an application that easily interacts with RSS feeds for example; the possibilities are endless (as long as they involve XML ;-) ).