I created a basic WCF service in a C# .NET web site. I was trying to connect to it via a web reference from a Winforms app with no luck. I kept on getting an error message "the operation has timed out"

The fix - use basic binding in the endpoint configuration

EX:
<service behaviorConfiguration="MyBehavior" name="MyNameSpace">
    <endpoint address="basic" binding="basicHttpBinding" contract="MyContract"><BR>
     <identity><BR>
      <dns value="localhost" /><BR>
     </identity><BR>
    </endpoint><BR>
    <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /><BR>
</service>

 
Voila - no more timeout - Give it a swirl!