I am delighted to announce that two of the abstracts I submitted for the Central Ohio Day of .NET 2008 have been accepted!  Go to http://cinnug.org/cododn/default.aspx for details, session list, and event registration (even though the event is FREE, please do register as it helps with planning for facilities, swag, and refreshments).  I hope to see you there on April 19, 2008!   My sessions are:

A Quick Tour of the Windows Mobile Development in Visual Studio 2008 (Level 200)
This session will give attendees a quick tour of Windows Mobile Development in Visual Studio 2008, primarily focusing on developing with the .NET Compact Framework 3.5 against the Windows Mobile API and SQL CE 3.5. See what features are in VS2008 to enable development of Windows Mobile applications for both the hobbyist and the enterprise. This session will also discuss and demonstrate use of Windows Mobile APIs including GPS, Outlook Mobile, SNAPI, and WISP as well as SQL CE 3.5

Access to Your Data Anytime and Anywhere With the Microsoft Sync Framework  (Level 300)
The Microsoft Sync Framework (MSF) is a comprehensive synchronization platform that enables synchronization, offline, and collaborative scenarios for services, applications, and devices. This session will discuss MSF, its architecture (including the default providers (Sync Services for ADO.NET, Sync Services for File Systems, and Sync Services for FeedSync)), and the mechanisms by which MSF can be extended. Demonstrations of MSF usage and building a custom provider will also be featured in this presentation

 I am very excited about the Sync presentation as I can also now talk about ADO.NET Sync Services for Devices which just released CTP1!

Earlier this year, I began work on a project on which I recommended Microsoft Synchronization Services for ADO.NET for use as our synchronization solution.   Our application is a desktop (WinForms, no WPF -  maybe more on that decision later) application that needs obtain and work with both reference data and bi-directional data (i.e. data created/updated by the user or the server).  The database we are exchanging data with happens to be Oracle, so a solution leveraging SQL Server Merge Replication was out.

Given that my Oracle skills were, at that time, rusty at best, I thought I would check out the example that Rafik posted for using Sync Services with Oracle.  Fair enough.  Once I got it working as-is, and before I began writing code against our database, I thought I would verify that it worked with ODP.NET. 

Why ODP.NET?  We were looking to leverage some of the capabilities available in that provider vs System.Data.OracleClient.

I changed out my references, made the necessary code changes and attempted to run.  Shortly after I invoke a sync, I receive the following error:

Type 'Oracle.DataAccess.Types.OpoDatCtx' in Assembly 'Oracle.DataAccess, Version=2.111.6.20, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89b483f429c47342' is not marked as serializable.

My initial reaction was to wonder what I had done incorrectly, or had forgotten to do.  I checked the code. Thrice.  Nothing missing. Stymied, I posted to the Sync Services for ADO.NET forum with suspicions that OpoDatCtx was internal to ODP.NET.  Sean Kelly from Microsoft replied to my query.  In sum, Sync Services was only ever intended for use use against Microsoft-implemented/shipped ADO.NET providers.

As (thank you, Reflector), OpoDatCtx is (as I suspected) an internal type and one I could not convert, this meant I had two option:

1) Return to using System.Data.OracleClient and deal with any ‘shortcomings’ compared to ODP.NET.
2) Dump Sync Services so that we could use ODP.NET, but roll all the sync code from scratch.

As you might have guessed, I chose option 1, and Sync Services is working swimmingly against Oracle.

Microsoft has released ADO.NET Synchronization Services for Devices CTP: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=75FEF59F-1B5E-49BC-A21A-9EF4F34DE6FC&displaylang=en 

Forums: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1225&SiteID=1

We've been waiting a while for this, so go get it and be certain to give your feedback to Liam and team in the forum!