HTTP in Summary

The previous sections have shown you how to do the following:

• Make simple requests for resources from an Internet server

• Access an Internet server through a proxy

• Respond to NTLM authentication

• Send data appended to the URL

• Post larger amounts of data to the server

Using this information, and with suitable ASP or CGI applications on the server, you can write Windows CE applications that receive and send data to an Internet server, and then through to enterprise databases or other data stores. You can decide on the format for the data transfer—you might choose a simple text format, or something more complex like a comma-separated variable (CSV) file or XML (Extensible Markup Language).

These Internet server requests can be made across either the Internet or your own intranet, with the Windows CE device connected through a modem, wireless, or direct network connection. Your solutions can support multiple Windows CE devices being connected at any one time, and you don't have to worry about writing multithreaded applications on the server.

The Windows CE application can receive information from the server and then save the data in a property database (see Chapter 4) for display when disconnected from the network. With these techniques you can simply and quickly integrate Windows CE devices into the enterprise.