XML isn't so much a language as it is a standard for describing data. But it's very useful.

One project I worked on involved streaming video. We wanted to stream video as easily as possible from a W2K Server.

So, I put together a component in VB that can convert AVI/MPG and such to MWF compressed files ready for streaming. The component also interacts with the streaming server to register the videos.

How does it work? The user transfers the video to a specific directory (it's all internal network/WAN, you don't want to transfer these videos over the internet). They then fill out a form on out intranet specifying the name of the video and some other details. After they submit the form the system kicks in, sending the data to the component as XML, converting the video, setting it up for streaming, and it even creates a web page that can be used to view the video. Finally it sends an e-mail to the person who registered the video to give them the various URLs and OBJECT tags need to incorporate the video into their own web pages.

Tools Used: VB6, W2K Server, Stream Tools on the server, ASP, IIS, and Oracle (for storing all video data).

This was one of the cooler projects. I have done lots of other VB schtuff.

Peter

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We got it at the Wazmo...
www.thewazmo.com