The application that we're building at work uses reports a lot and all our reports are built with Crystal Report. I think that Crystal Report is a good tool for building reports, but the Crystal Report engine that come swith Visual Studio is sometimes too much limited (and not so simple to use!) 
In these days I was reading something about the new SQL Reporting Services by Microsoft, the new Report Engine that comes with SQL Server (SQL Server 2000 SP3 is required). I think that this is a great tool for reporting, well integrated with SQL Server, well designed and with a wonderful IDE integrated vith VS.NET (Report Designer) for design your report.

The feature that was totally new for me is the Report Subscription: there's a great Web Interface where you can make subscriptions to some reports of your interest and receive them in your mailbox or in a shared folder, in the format you want and at the time you want. Great!!


I was thinking to our application... I think that this could be a great and easy way to export our reports to customers.
Maybe I have to try to convince my working staff to adopt the Reporting Services soon... 
There's only a little problem now: the SQL Reporting Services now produce reports only exportable in some predefined formats (PDF, HTML, XML, MHT, TIFF, Excel, CSV) or viewable via Web... there's not (at the moment) a Windows Control that permits to view reports on a Windows Form application (correct me if wrong). Obviously, I know that we can view a Web Page on a Winform Application (for example using the WebBrowser Control), but this is not a great way I think... 
However, Reporting Services seems better than what I was thinking... 
Davide Mauri signals me an interesting news: Orneta Software House has stopped its MS Smartphone and Pocket PC activity, so it's no longer selling or making software for these platforms.
All the Orneta products are now available for free... to get for free the products you can simply go to the Orneta Website. To get for free, no strings attached, registration codes for all our programs please click here. To download the software directly to your smartphone go to http://mobile.orneta.com inside of your smartphone.
There are interesting product and if you have a MS Smartphone or Pocket PC I recommend a visit... 
I've received today this link, maybe useful for a beginner: VB.NET and C# Comparison.
This is a quick reference guide to highlight some key syntactical differences between VB.NETand C#.
I think it could be useful! 