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Welcome to the Home Page of Richard Grimes.

A little about me:

I started programming at high school in the days when computers had just 8-bit processors and few people owned them (it's not that long ago, and I am still quite sprightly!). I really cut my teeth when I wrote the control and data acquisition software for my PhD project. After that I worked for a while as a computer trainer, but left when the pay remained pretty poor and I saw little of my family. The solution was a desk job for a company that developed distributed objects and along with the extra salary I also gained 20lbs... This put me in a good position to write "Professional DCOM Programming" - the big red DCOM book - and with the success of that I decided to write full time. Since then I have written four other books and write regularly for VCDJ and VSJ, however, I still have not been able to lose that extra 20lbs!

New Projects

I am currently immersing myself in COM+ and the underlying mechanisms of COM. Here is a list of the topics that I am looking at. Come back frequently to this page to see what I am researching. I will update this page to show where I will publish the results of the research.

Error Objects and COM

I'm looking at the various ways to generate rich error info and how to extend this for a talk at VCDC, Bonn, Feb 2000

Threading and COM

COM allows components to run in STA and MTA apartments, STA apartments are tied to windows. I'm looking at the messages that are used when COM calls and callbacks are made for a talk at VCDC, Bonn, Feb 2000. I hope to write this up later as an article.

COM+ Interception and Type Information

COM+ interception requires information about the objects it is intercepting, so typically a type library is needed. However, TLBs do not have all of the information that COM+ requires - so old fashioned COM registration is needed too. This makes me regard COM+ 1 as an intermediate solution - a bridge between the old COM and some new COM in the future. (For a talk at DevWeek, London, Feb 2000)

COM+ Security

COM+ performs access checks automatically for you based on COM+ Catalog settings for a component and its application. COM+ security also gives you enhanced information about the identities of the callers to a component. (For a talk at DevWeek, London, Feb 2000 - I am currently writing this up as an article for iDevResource.com)

My reading list at the moment is:

• XML In Action
  Everyone is making a fuss about XML and so I thought I would find out what it is all about.
  Buy the book from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
• Advanced CORBA Programming with C++, Michi Henning, Steve Vinoski, Addison Wesley Press.
  I met Michi at a conference in October last year, so I thought I would read his book and find out why he was so enthusiastic about CORBA. I like the book, but I am still not convinced that I should use it instead of COM!
  Buy the book from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
• Network Security, Charlie Kaufman, Radia Perlman, Mike Spenser, Prentice Hall.
  Security is vital and tragically overlooked. This gives all aspects of security and cryptography in its gorey details.
  Buy the book from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

Books Written by Richard

	Professional DCOM Programming: Go To Wrox Press, or buy the book from Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com
	Professional DCOM Programming: Go To Wrox Press, or buy the book from Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com
	Professional ATL COM Programming: Go To Wrox Press, or buy the book from Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com
	ATL COM Programmer's Reference: Go To Wrox Press, or buy the book from Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com
	Professional Visual C++ 6 MTS Programming: Go To Wrox Press, or buy the book from Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com