What do I do

After talking with my folks this weekend, it seems that a layperson explanation of what I do may be in order.

My current work involves coding up some back-end software for processing forms information. Now to unpack that statement: Forms are things that you fill in to say apply for a credit card or in order to get a drivers license. Often they include information like your name, address, telephone number. In my work these forms are electronic on a mobile device like a Cell Phone. This allows the persons collecting the information to be mobile themselves: such as in a mall or at a business meeting.

This information can be stored in a businesses database or on some websites. An example of a website that stores forms information is SalesForce.com. My last bit of work is getting this information integrated into these type of data stores.

Microsoft Office Live

Last week, I worked on Office Live from a server perspective. Office Live is a hosted solution from Microsoft for web sites and business management information like Sales leads, Time sheets, expenses, etc.

My company wanted to be able to programmatically add a new sales lead using the web services provided since Office Live is actually based on Microsoft SharePoint 3.0 that should be possible but alas as of Feb 23, 2007 the Live ID authentication is not supported on OfficeLive. After downloading the Live ID SDK, I was able to authenticate to Live ID but I wasnt' able to consume any of the services from Office Live.

Here's a little snippet that should be possible:
IdentityManager oIDMgr = IdentityManager.CreateInstance("Tailspin Toys;dan@tailspintoys.com;Tailspin Toys Application", "Windows Live ID Client Sample");
Identity oID=oIDMgr.CreateIdentity();
Discovery discoverySvc= new Discovery();
LiveIDSettings settings = discoverySvc.GetLiveIDSettings();
string ticket = identity.GetTicket(settings.SiteName, settings.Policy, false);
authModule = new WindowsLiveAuthenticationModule(ticket);
AuthenticationManager.Register(authModule);
string[] subscriptionIDs = discoverySvc.GetSubscriptions();

Tell me about your experiences...