We've just arrived in Hong Kong and we're wireless again.  I'd post another picture, but it would look just like the last one except we'd be more tired and have Chinese writing behind us.

On a technical note, we're continuing to run into more Web Services No-No's.  This time it was interfacing .NET with a "legacy" Apache-SOAP implementation.  Oy vey.  It insisted on a custom Apache encoding style ala:

<ns1:SomeMessage xmlns:ns1="urn:UpdateSubUser" SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="http://xml.apache.org/xml-soap/literalxml">

So, in the tradition of writing Soap Extensions we are ashamed of :) my CTO whiped up an custom attribute "XmlForceEncoding" that allows this madness to occur.  Also, the Web Services we were consuming was using the XSD spec from 1999, rather than 2001, so that was special.

Here's some things Chris and I learned (Chris' words):

The encodingStyle they are using is archaic and Apache-specific (non-standard).  It also violates the current WS-I Basic Profile (http://ws-i.org/Profiles/Basic/2003-08/BasicProfile-1.0a.htm#refinement35501800).  There are a number of messages on SOAPBuilders and elsewhere about challenges with interoperability for servers using this sort of encoding (see below).  The problem here is the contradiction between the use="literal" attribute and the encodingStyle attribute.  In (modern) web services, use="literal" means XSD schema-based encoding, so it is therefore unecessary (and redundant) to specify an encodingStyle.  In this case it is even contradictory. http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/Apache-Soap-Users/736360

What was once science-fiction is now commonplace.  I'm blogging this entry from the lounge in the international terminal in SFO on the way to TechEd Malaysia.  There's T-Mobile hotspots everywhere for a very reasonable $6 a hour.  I'm even three floors down next to the gate with great coverage.  NetStumbler says there are six access points within a few hundred meters and 5 other laptop fools online with me.  I'm VPN'ed into work via IPsec, chatting with my boss over MSN Messenger, syncronizing Outlook 2003's offline Exchange store with the mothershop and I've got an online game of Rise of Nations running the background.  All on a laptop with a 1600x1200 (120dpi) screen that only weight about 6 pounds.

Madness my friends.  Madness if you don't realize how far we've come.  Of course, I needed a B.S. in Software Engineering to make it all happen (considering how hard it was just to get this F'ing Wireless card to work.   BUT, regardless.  Amazing. 

So, I took a picture of my wife and I with a Casio Exilim, docked it, hooked up the USB, it becomes the Z: drive (no driver installation!) and here's the result: 

More to come, folks.