Chapter 13: Unlocking Remote Access

Overview

As you have learned, web services provide an ideal way for programmers to create the ability for a server to offer a wide range of data. Throughout this book, you have created web services that provide users with access to databases, graphics images, multimedia files, and more. In this chapter, you will learn how to use web services to extend a user’s PC desktop.

Assume, for example, that you are traveling and you realize that you have left behind a needed file on your PC. Using a web service, you can download the file or direct your system to e-mail the file to a specific e-mail address.

The key to providing a web service with the ability to access files on your system is to use a Windows service: a program that Windows automatically runs each time the system starts to which you can assign the necessary file-access permissions the program will need to access the files and folders on your system. In this chapter, you will implement such a Windows service.