If you engage in any kind of e-commerce then chances are you'll soon encounter the term "3D Secure". This is a security system introduced by Visa and Mastercard to protect against internet fraud. Yawn, pretty dull right. Well it is but it has a couple of real benefits for both e-commerce customers and e-commerce website owners. The most important of which is liability shift. This means that you, yes you Mr Website Owner, are protected against most fraudulent transactions. Given that recent reports state that Internet card fraud is rising at a rapid rate, "3D Secure" seems a no-brainer for most e-commerce sites. 

Still awake?

Good, excellent, keep with me because good stuff is on the way. "3D Secure" comes in two forms: "Verified by Visa" and "Mastercard Secure Code". Great, it's like a repeat of the VHS vs BetaMax wars. Well, not quite. Lucky for us Visa and Mastercard appear to have tackled the problem together and implementing both schemes into a website can be done simulataneously. Frankly that's good news for developers like myself. What's not good news is that the process of getting "3D Secure" into an existing site can be a little jarring and may require substantial changes to your payment gateway. The essence of the changes is the receipt of a ParEq code from your internet payment provider which needs to be sent to the card holders bank but more about that in a later article.

But is this optional?

Yes and no. Visa and Mastercard are strongly pushing the scheme and it's expected to become mandatory at some point in the near future. However most internet payment providers have already made "Mastercard Secure Code" mandatory for the acceptance of the UK Maestro cards. This means that if you want to accept the Maestro card, and you really do, then you will need to implement the "3D Secure" scheme on your site to do so. Existing sites that accept Maestro but do not accept "3D Secure" will soon cease to function. Fear not as in my next post I'll explain how to modify an existing .NET based payment gateway to accept "3D Secure" payments. You'll need your techy hat on and, in true Blue Peter style, a toilet roll and sticky-backed tape. Stay tuned.

With Microsoft .NET 3.5 on the horizon a lot of hype has been around Microsoft’s new Language Integrated Query (LINQ).  So what is LINQ?  LINQ is a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that provides the facility to query in-memory and external data.  When Visual Studio 2008 ships later this year, LINQ will support query in-memory objects (LINQ), XML (XLINQ), ADO.NET DataSets (LINQ to DataSet) and SQL Server (LINQ to SQL).

Next year, probably Q2 2008, Microsoft will release the ADO.NET Entity Framework.  The Framework will fully support LINQ through LINQ to Entities.  LINQ to SQL and the ADO.NET Entity Framework are both an O/RM (Object Relational Mapper) that enables you to map entities to your data source. 

So when should you use one over the other?  Well, if you’re using anything that isn’t SQL Server for your data store then the ADO.NET Entity Framework is your only option as LINQ to SQL only works with SQL Server.  If you are using SQL Server though, you still have the choice between the two technologies.  In simple terms, the ADO.NET Entity Framework is the big brother of LINQ to SQL and if your application requires one or more of the following then you should choose the ADO.NET Entity Framework:

• Mapping a single class to multiple tables
• Mapping to inheritance
• Mapping directly many-to-many relationships
• Mapping to a query
• Querying a database that isn’t SQL Server
• The ability to share the data model across other services such as Reporting Services, Integration Services etc.

The above lists just a few major differences between the two technologies. 

Scott Guthrie has a great overview of LINQ to SQL on his blog.

In associaion with ShapLogic the Windows Live Platform Group have released another QuickApp.  Based around the sample database of SQL Server 2005, Adventure Works, the website utilises a number of Live services to quickly build a fully functional web application.

What is in it from Windows Live?

• Live ID being associated with ASP.NET Profiles
• User Generated Video Content
• Accepting file uploads
• dropping the uploads onto a MSMQ Queue
• automatically encoding using Expression Encoder
• programmatically uploading to Silverlight Streaming
• rendering the videos back from Silverlight Streaming
• Map Point Web Service
• Contacts Control
• Spaces Photo Control
• Windows Live Alerts

The app also makes use of SilverLight.

 You can view the test website or download the source from codeplex.