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This book is for anyone who wants to learn how to build rich and interactive web sites that run on the Microsoft platform. With the knowledge you gain from this book, you create a great foundation to build any type of web site, ranging from simple hobby-related web sites to sites you may be creating for commercial purposes.

Anyone new to web programming should be able to follow along because no prior background in web development is assumed although it helps if you do have a basic understanding of HTML and the web in general. The book starts at the very beginning of web development by showing you how to obtain and install Visual Web Developer. The chapters that follow gradually introduce you to new technologies, building on top of the knowledge gained in the previous chapters.

Do you have a strong preference for Visual Basic over C# or the other way around? Or do you think both languages are equally cool? Or maybe you haven't made up your mind yet and want to learn both languages? Either way, you'll like this book because all code examples are presented in both languages!

Even if you have some experience with prior versions of ASP.NET, you may gain a lot from this book. Although many concepts from previous versions are brought forward into ASP.NET 4, you'll discover there's a lot of new stuff to be found in this book, including an introduction to the ADO.NET Entity Framework, the inclusion of jQuery, ASP.NET AJAX, the many changes to the ASP.NET 4 Framework, and much more.

This book teaches you how to create a feature-rich, data-driven, and interactive web site called Planet Wrox. Although this is quite a mouthful, you'll find that with Visual Web Developer 2010, developing such a web site isn't as hard as it seems. You'll see the entire process of building a web site, from installing Visual Web Developer 2010 in Chapter 1 all the way up to putting your web application on a live server in Chapter 19. The book is divided into 19 chapters, each dealing with a specific subject.

• Chapter 1, “Getting Started with ASP.NET 4” shows you how to obtain and install Visual Web Developer 2010. You'll get instructions for downloading and installing the free edition of Visual Web Developer 2010, called the Express edition. You are also introduced to HTML, the language behind every web page. The chapter closes with an overview of the customization options that Visual Web Developer gives you.

• Chapter 2, “Building an ASP.NET Web Site” shows you how to create a new web site and how to add new elements like pages to it. Besides learning how to create a well-structured site, you also see how to use the numerous tools in Visual Web Developer to create HTML and ASP.NET pages.

• Chapter 3, “Designing Your Web Pages.” Visual Web Developer comes with a host of tools that allow you to create well-designed and attractive web pages. In this chapter, you see how to make good use of these tools. Additionally, you learn about CSS, the language that is used to format web pages.

• Chapter 4, “Working with ASP.NET Server Controls.” ASP.NET Server Controls are one of the most important concepts in ASP.NET. They allow you to create complex and feature-rich web sites with very little code. This chapter introduces you to the large number of server controls that are available, explains what they are used for, and shows you how to use them.

• Chapter 5, “Programming Your ASP.NET Web Pages.” Although the built-in CSS tools and the ASP.NET Server Controls can get you a long way in creating web pages, you are likely to use a programming language to enhance your pages. This chapter serves as an introduction to programming with a strong focus on programming web pages. Best of all: all the examples you see in this chapter (and the rest of the book) are in both Visual Basic and C#, so you can choose the language you like best.

• Chapter 6, “Creating Consistent Looking Web Sites.” ASP.NET helps you create consistent-looking pages through the use of master pages, which allow you to define the global look and feel of a page. Skins and themes help you to centralize the looks of controls and other visual elements in your site. You also see how to create a base page that helps to centralize programming code that you need on all pages in your site.

• Chapter 7, “Navigation.” To help your visitors find their way around your site, ASP.NET comes with a number of navigation controls. These controls are used to build the navigation structure of your site. They can be connected to your site's central site map that defines the pages in your web site. You also learn how to programmatically send users from one page to another.

• Chapter 8, “User Controls.” User controls are reusable page fragments that can be used in multiple web pages. As such, they are great for repeating content such as menus, banners, and so on. In this chapter, you learn how to create and use user controls and enhance them with some programmatic intelligence.

• Chapter 9, “Validating User Input.” A large part of interactivity in your site is defined by the input of your users. This chapter shows you how to accept, validate, and process user input using ASP.NET Server Controls. Additionally, you see how to send e-mail from your ASP.NET web application and how to read from text files.

• Chapter 10, “ASP.NET AJAX.” Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX allows you to create good-looking, flicker-free web pages that close the gap between traditional desktop applications and web applications. In this chapter you learn how to use the built-in Ajax features to enhance the presence of your web pages, resulting in a smoother interaction with the web site.

• Chapter 11, “jQuery.” jQuery is a popular, open source and cross-browser JavaScript library designed to make it easier to interact with web pages in the client’s browser. In this chapter you learn the basics of jQuery and see how to add rich visual effects and animations to your web pages.

• Chapter 12, “Introducing Databases.” Understanding how to use a database is critical to building web sites, as most modern web sites require the use of a database. You’ll learn the basics of SQL, the query language that allows you to access and alter data in a database. In addition, you are introduced to the database tools found in Visual Web Developer that help you create and manage your SQL Server databases.

• Chapter 13, “Displaying and Updating Data.” Building on the knowledge you gained in the previous chapter, this chapter shows you how to use the ASP.NET data-bound and data source controls to create a rich interface that enables your users to interact with the data in the database that these controls target.

• Chapter 14, “LINQ and the ADO.NET Entity Framework.” LINQ is Microsoft’s solution for accessing objects, databases, XML, and more. The ADO.NET Entity Framework (EF) is Microsoft's new technology for database access. This chapter shows you what LINQ is all about, how to use the visual EF designer built into Visual Studio, and how to write LINQ to EF queries to get data in and out of your SQL Server database.

• Chapter 15, “Working with Data—Advanced Topics.” While earlier chapters focused mostly on the technical foundations of working with data, this chapter looks at the same topic from a front-end perspective. You see how to change the visual appearance of your data through the use of control styles. You also see how to interact with the data-bound controls and how to speed up your application by keeping a local copy of frequently accessed data.

• Chapter 16, “Security in Your ASP.NET 4 Web Site.” Although presented quite late in the book, security is a first-class, important topic. This chapter shows you how to make use of the built-in ASP.NET features related to security. You learn about a number of application services that facilitate security. You also learn how to let users sign up for an account on your web site, how to distinguish between anonymous and logged-on users, and how to manage the users in your system.

• Chapter 17, “Personalizing Web Sites.” Building on the security features introduced in Chapter 16, this chapter shows you how to create personalized web pages with content targeted at individual users. You see how to configure and use ASP.NET Profile that enables you to store personalized data for known and anonymous visitors.

• Chapter 18, “Exception Handling, Debugging, and Tracing.” In order to understand, improve, and fix the code you write for your ASP.NET web pages you need good debugging tools. Visual Web Developer ships with great debugging support that enables you to diagnose the state of your application at run time, helping you find and fix problems before your users do.

• Chapter 19, “Deploying Your Web Site.” By the end of the book, you should have a web site that is ready to be shown to the world. But how exactly do you do that? What are the things you need to know and understand to put your web site out in the wild? This chapter gives the answers and provides you with a good look at configuring different production systems in order to run your final web site.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

This book is for anyone who wants to learn how to build rich and interactive web sites that run on the Microsoft platform. With the knowledge you gain from this book, you create a great foundation to build any type of web site, ranging from simple hobby-related web sites to sites you may be creating for commercial purposes.

Anyone new to web programming should be able to follow along because no prior background in web development is assumed. The book starts at the very beginning of web development by showing you how to obtain and install Visual Web Developer. The chapters that follow gradually introduce you to new technologies, building on top of the knowledge gained in the previous chapters.

Do you have a strong preference for Visual Basic over C# or the other way around? Or do you think both languages are equally cool? Or maybe you haven't made up your mind yet and want to learn both languages? Either way, you'll like this book because all code examples are presented in both languages!

Even if you're already familiar with previous versions of ASP.NET, with the 1.x versions in particular, you may gain a lot from this book. Although many concepts from ASP.NET 2.0 are brought forward into ASP.NET 3.5, you'll discover there's a host of new stuff to be found in this book, including an introduction to LINQ, the new CSS and JavaScript debugging tools, new ASP.NET controls, and integrated support for ASP.NET Ajax.

To build effective and attractive database-driven web sites, you need two things: a solid and fast framework to run your web pages on and a rich and extensive environment to create and program these web pages. With ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Web Developer 2008 you get both. Together they form the platform to create dynamic and interactive web applications.

ASP.NET 3.5 builds on top of its popular predecessor ASP.NET 2.0. While maintaining backward compatibility with sites built using this older version, the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 in general and ASP.NET 3.5 in particular add a lot of new, compelling features to the mix.

Continuing the path of "less code" that was entered with the 2.0 version of the .NET Framework, ASP.NET 3.5 lets you accomplish more with even less code. New features like LINQ that are added to the .NET Framework allow you to access a database with little to no hand written code. The integration of Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax into the ASP.NET Framework and Visual Web Developer means you can now create fast responding and spiffy web interfaces simply by dragging a few controls onto your page and setting a few properties. This book gives you an in-depth look at both these technologies.

The support for cascading style sheets (CSS), the language to lay out and format web pages, has undergone a major overhaul in Visual Web Developer. The design time support, that shows you how a page will eventually look in the browser, has been vastly improved. Additionally, Visual Web Developer now ships with a lot of tools that make writing CSS a breeze.

However, drag-and-drop support and visual tools are not the only things you'll learn from this book. ASP.NET 3.5 and Visual Web Developer 2008 come with a great and extensive set of tools to help you program your web applications. These tools range from the new LINQ syntax that allows you to query data and databases in your web applications, to the vastly improved debugging capabilities that allow you to debug your application from client-side JavaScript all the way up into your server-side code, all with the same familiar user interface, commands, and actions.

Under the hood, ASP.NET 3.5 makes use of the same run-time as version 2.0. This ensures a great backward compatibility with that version, which means that ASP.NET 2.0 applications continue to run under the new framework. But don't be fooled by the fact that the run-time hasn't changed. Although the technical underpinnings needed to execute your web application haven't changed, the .NET 3.5 Framework and ASP.NET add a lot of new features, as you'll discover in this book.

Probably the best thing of Visual Web Developer 2008 is its price: it's available for free. Although the commercial versions of Visual Studio 2008 ship with Visual Web Developer, you can also download and install the free Express Edition. This makes Visual Web Developer 2008 and ASP.NET 3.5 probably the most attractive and compelling web development technologies available today.

This book teaches you how to create a feature-rich, data-driven, and interactive web site. Although this is quite a mouthful, you'll find that with Visual Web Developer 2008 this isn’t as hard as it seems. You'll see the entire process of building a web site, from installing Visual Web Developer 2008 in Chapter 1 all the way up to putting your web application on a live server in Chapter 18. The book is divided into 18 chapters, each dealing with a specific subject.

Chapter 1, “Getting Started With ASP.NET 3.5.” In this chapter you'll see how to obtain and install Visual Web Developer 2008. You'll get instructions for downloading and installing the free edition of Visual Web Developer 2008, called the Express Edition. You are also introduced to HTML, the language behind every web page. The chapter closes with an overview of the customization options that Visual Web Developer gives you.

Chapter 2, “Building an ASP.NET Web Site.” This chapter shows you how to create a new web site and how to add new elements like pages to it. Besides learning how to create a well-structured site, you also see how to use the numerous tools in Visual Web Developer to create HTML and ASP.NET pages.

Chapter 3, “Designing Your Web Pages.” Visual Web Developer comes with a host of tools that allow you to create well-designed and attractive web pages. In this chapter, you see how to make good use of these tools. Additionally, you learn about CSS, the language that is used to format web pages.

Chapter 4, “Working with ASP.NET Controls.” ASP.NET Server controls are one of the most important concepts in ASP.NET. They allow you to create complex and feature-rich web sites with very little code. This chapter introduces you to the large number of server controls that are available, explains what they are used for, and shows you how to use them.

Chapter 5, “Programming Your ASP.NET Web Pages.” Although the built-in CSS tools and the ASP.NET server controls can get you a long way in creating web pages, you are likely to use a programming language to enhance your pages. This chapter serves as an introduction to programming with a strong focus on programming web pages. Best of all: all the examples you see in this chapter (and the rest of the book) are in both Visual Basic and C#, so you can choose the language you like best.

Chapter 6, “Creating Consistent Looking Web Sites.” Consistency is important to give your web site an attractive and professional appeal. ASP.NET helps you create consistent-looking pages through the use of master pages, which allow you to define the global look and feel of a page. Skins and themes help you to centralize the looks of controls and other visual elements in your site. You also see how to create a base page that helps to centralize programming code that you need on all pages in your site.

Chapter 7, “Navigation.” To help your visitors find their way around your site, ASP.NET comes with a number of navigation controls. These controls are used to build the navigation structure of your site. They can be connected to your site's central site map that defines the pages in your web site. You also learn how to programmatically send users from one page to another.

Chapter 8, “User Controls.” User Controls are reusable page fragments that can be used in multiple web pages. As such, they are great for repeating content like menus, banners, and so on. In this chapter, you learn how to create and use User Controls and enhance them with some programmatic intelligence.

Chapter 9, “Validating User Input.” A large part of interactivity in your site is defined by the input of your users. This chapter shows you how to accept, validate, and process user input using ASP.NET server controls. Additionally, you see how to send e-mail from your ASP.NET web application and how to read from text files.

Chapter 10, “ASP.NET Ajax.” Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax allows you to create good looking, flicker free web pages that close the gap between traditional desktop applications and web applications. In this chapter you learn how to use the built-in Ajax features to enhance the presence of your web pages, resulting in a smoother interaction with the web site.

Chapter 11, “Introduction to Databases.” Understanding how to use databases is critical to building modern web sites, as most modern web sites require the use of a database. You'll learn the basics of SQL, the query language that allows you to access and alter data in a database. In addition, you are introduced to the database tools found in Visual Web Developer that help you create and manage your SQL Server databases.

Chapter 12, “Displaying and Updating Data.” Building on the knowledge you gained in the previous chapter, this chapter shows you how to use the ASP.NET data-bound and data source controls to create a rich interface that enables your users to interact with the data in the database that these controls target.

Chapter 13, “LINQ.” LINQ is Microsoft's new solution for accessing objects, databases, XML, and more. In this chapter you'll see how to use LINQ to SQL to access SQL Server databases. Instead of writing a lot of manual code, you create a bunch of LINQ objects that do the heavy work for you. This chapter shows you what LINQ is all about, how to use the visual LINQ designer built into Visual Web Developer, and how to write LINQ queries to get data in and out of your SQL Server database.

Chapter 14, “Presenting Data: Advanced Topics....

.NET 3.5 is Microsoft’s largest development software launch since .NET 2.0 and (unlike .NET 3.0) completely replaces all previous .NET versions. A new version of Visual Studio – Visual Studio ‘Orcas’ is being created for the new Framework together with new versions of both the Visual Basic and C# languages. This book deals with this new Visual Basic language.

The book provides developers with a complete treatise on the new technology- explaining the importance of all the new features (lambda expressions, LINQ, ASP.NET AJAX, WPF everywhere).and how they integrate into the framework of the previous .NET versions. It is a comprehensively revised and updated version of author’s award winning previous titles.

Be the first to understand .NET 4.0 and Visual Basic 2010. Pro VB 2010 and the .NET 4.0 Platform provides developers with a complete guide to the new technology, explaining the importance of all the key VB 2010 language features. This edition has been comprehensively revised and rewritten to make it accurately reflect the VB 10 language specification for the .NET 4.0 platform. You’ll find new chapters covering the important concepts of dynamic lookups, named and optional arguments, Parallel LINQ (PLINQ), improved COM interop, and variance for generics.

The first edition of this book was released at the 2001 Tech-Ed conference in Atlanta, Georgia. At that time, the .NET platform was still a beta product, and in many ways, so was this book. This is not to say that the early editions of this text did not have merit—after all, the book was a 2002 Jolt Award finalist and it won the 2003 Referenceware Excellence Award. However, over the years that author Andrew Troelsen spent working with the common language runtime (CLR), he gained a much deeper understanding of the .NET platform and the subtleties of the VB programming language, and he feels that this sixth edition of the book is as close to a “final release” as he’s come yet!

If you’re checking out this book for the first time, do understand that it’s targeted at experienced software professionals and/or graduate students of computer science (so don’t expect three chapters on iteration or decision constructs!). The mission of this text is to provide you with a rock-solid foundation in the VB programming language and the core aspects of the .NET platform (assemblies, remoting, Windows Forms, Web Forms, ADO.NET, XML web services, etc.). Once you digest the information presented in these 25 chapters, you’ll be in a perfect position to apply this knowledge to your specific programming assignments and explore the .NET universe on your own terms.

What you’ll learn

• Discover the ins and outs of the leading .NET technology.
• Learn from an award-winning author who has been teaching the .NET world since version 1.0.
• Find complete coverage of the WPF, WCF, and WF foundations that support the core .NET platform.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone with some software development experience who is interested in the new .NET Framework 4.0 and the VB language. Whether you are moving to .NET for the first time or are already writing applications on .NET 2.0 or .NET 3.5, this book will provide you with a comprehensive grounding in the new technology and serve as a complete reference throughout your coding career.

Table of Contents

1. Introducing VB 2010
2. Building Visual Basic 2010 Applications
3. Core VB 2010 Programming Constructs, Part I
4. Core VB 2010 Programming Constructs, Part II
5. Defining Encapsulated Class Types
6. Understanding Inheritance and Polymorphism
7. Understanding Structured Exception Handling
8. Understanding Object Lifetime
9. Working with Interfaces
10. Understanding Generics
11. Delegates, Events, and Lambdas
12. Advanced VB 2010 Language Features
13. LINQ to Objects
14. Configuring .NET Assemblies
15. Type Reflection, Late Binding, and Attribute-Based Programming
16. Processes, AppDomains, and Object Contexts
17. Understanding CIL and the Role of Dynamic Assemblies
18. Dynamic Types and the Dynamic Language Runtime
19. Multithreaded and Parallel Programming
20. File I/O and Object Serialization
21. ADO.NET Part I: The Connected Layer
22. ADO.NET Part II: The Disconnected Layer
23. ADO.NET Part III: The Entity Framework
24. Introducing LINQ to XML
25. Introducing Windows Communication Foundation
26. Introducing Windows Workflow Foundation 4.0
27. Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation and XAML
28. Programming with WPF Controls
29. WPF Graphics Rendering Services
30. WPF Resources, Animations, and Styles
31. WPF Control Templates and UserControls
32. Building ASP.NET Web Pages
33. ASP.NET Web Controls, Master Pages, and Themes
34. ASP.NET State Management Techniques
35. Programming with Windows Forms
36. Platform-Independent .NET Development with Mono

ASP.NET 4 is the principal standard for creating dynamic web pages on the Windows platform. Pro ASP.NET 4 in VB 2010 raises the bar for high-quality, practical advice on learning and deploying Microsoft's dynamic web solution.

This edition is updated with everything you need to come to grips with version 4 of ASP.NET, including coverage of ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET AJAX 4, ASP.NET Dynamic Data, and Silverlight 3.

Seasoned .NET professionals Matthew MacDonald and Mario Szpuszta explain how you can get the most from these groundbreaking new technologies. They cover ASP.NET 4 as a whole, illustrating both the brand-new features and the functionality carried over from previous versions of ASP. This book will give you the knowledge you need to code real ASP.NET 4 applications in the best possible style.

What you’ll learn

• Understand why ASP.NET 4 is so special, what its fundamental principles are, the basics of Visual Studio, and how ASP.NET controls are created and how they fit into ASP.NET pages, ultimately creating full applications.
• Become familiar with ASP.NET MVC, one of the biggest additions to ASP.NET 4, and understand how to use it and integrate it within your existing ASP.NET applications.
• Discover the intricacies of ADO.NET and how to perform data binding to many sources, from databases to file streams to XML.
• Learn the various forms of security available and how to best apply them. Once considered the Achilles' heel of all Windows web applications, security has vastly improved and is now a cornerstone of ASP.NET 4.
• Examine in detail advanced user interface techniques, including user controls, customer server controls, client-side JavaScript, GDI+, and Silverlight 3.
• Understand how to work with web services, an important skill in an increasingly connected world.
• Use ASP.NET AJAX 4, with an emphasis on contemporary web development techniques.
• Perform development using Internet Information Services 7, Microsoft's premier web hosting platform.

Who this book is for

This book is for anyone with some software development experience who is interested in the .NET Framework 4 and the VB language. Whether you are moving to .NET for the first time or are already writing applications on .NET 2.0 or .NET 3.5, this book will provide you with a comprehensive grounding in the new technology and serve as a complete reference throughout your coding career.

Table of Contents

1. Introducing ASP.NET
2. Visual Studio
3. Web Forms
4. Server Controls
5. ASP.NET Applications
6. State Management
7. ADO.NET Fundamentals
8. Data Components and the DataSet
9. Data Binding
10. Rich Data Controls
11. Caching and Asynchronous Pages
12. Files and Streams
13. LINQ
14. XML
15. User Controls
16. Themes and Master Pages
17. Website Navigation
18. Website Deployment
19. The ASP.NET Security Model
20. Forms Authentication
21. Membership
22. Windows Authentication
23. Authorization and Roles
24. Profiles
25. Cryptography
26. Custom Membership Providers
27. Custom Server Controls
28. Graphics, GDI+, and Charting
29. JavaScript and Ajax Techniques
30. ASP.NET AJAX
31. Portals with Web Part Pages
32. MVC
33. Dynamic Data
34. Silverlight

¿User Interfaces in VB.NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls¿, goes beyond simple coverage of the Windows Forms and GDI+ namespaces by combining a careful treatment of the API with a detailed discussion of good user-interface design principles. After reading ¿User Interfaces in VB.NET: Windows Forms and Custom Controls¿, you'll know how to design state-of-the-art strategies, program graphics, and much more. This book contains the following: 1. An overview of how to design elegant user interfaces the average user can understand. 2. A comprehensive examination of the user interface controls and classes in .NET. 3. Best practices and design tips for coding user interfaces and integrating help Although this book isn't a reference, it does contain detailed discussions about every user interface element you'll use on a regular basis. But you won't just learn how to use .NET controls--you'll learn how and why to extend them with your own custom controls. As a developer, you need to know more than how to add a control to a window. You also need to know how to create an entire user interface framework that's scalable, flexible, and reusable. About the Author Matthew MacDonald is an author, educator and MCSD developer. He's also a regular contributor to programming journals like ¿Inside Visual Basic and C# Today¿, and the author of several books about programming, including ¿The Book of VB .NET¿ and ¿ASP.NET The Complete Reference¿.

Build Your Own ASP.NET 4 Web Site Using C# & VB is aimed at beginner ASP.NET developers wanting to develop their skills, web designers wanting to move into server-side programming, and experienced developers making the leap from ASP to .NET.

Readers will learn:

• language and programming basics
• how to construct ASP.Net Web Pages
• how to build web applications
• to use validation controls
• database design and development
• how to use ADO.NET
• how to manage data and content
• how to integrate Ajax and jQuery
• the role of MVC

... all in the process of successfully developing and deploying a working intranet site for a fictional company.

Visual Basic .NET is a radically new version of Microsoft Visual Basic, the world's most widely used rapid application development (RAD) package. Whether you are just beginning application development with Visual Basic .NET or are already deep in code, you will appreciate just how easy and valuable the VB.NET Language Pocket Reference is.

VB.NET Language Pocket Reference contains a concise description of all language elements by category. These include language elements implemented by the Visual Basic compiler, as well as all procedures and functions implemented in the Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace. Use it anytime you want to look up those pesky details of Visual Basic syntax or usage. With concise detail and no fluff, you'll want to take this book everywhere.

In their book, "Programming VB.NET: A Guide for Experienced Programmers", Gary Cornell and Jonathan Morrison carefully explain the features of what is, for all practical purposes, a new language. This careful treatment of language features, patterned on Cornell's best-selling "Core Java Volume 1" is necessary because although VB.NET looks like BASIC, it is really a language in the Java/C# family from a "semantic" point of view. This means all features of the language will need explaining to the programming coming from a previous version of VB. This book carefully explains all the new features of VB.NET, including Inheritance, Interfaces, Object Construction and Destruction, Streams, Multi-Threading Programming, and much more. When readers finish this book, they will have a firm grasp on the exciting VB.NET language and will be ready to move on to application-building strategies and concepts. Author Information: Gary Cornell is one of today's best-selling computer authors and winner of a "Visual Basic Programmer's Journal" Award for best introductory Visual Basic book. He is also the editor of Pinnacle Publishing Company's ".NET Newsletter" that has more than 15,000 subscribers. He is also the co-founder of Apress. Jonathan Morrison is the author of Apress' extremely well-received "C++ For Visual Basic Programmers" and currently works for Microsoft Corporation. He previously worked as a consultant for numerous high technology companies on VB development for the Enterprise.

You know all those hidden techniques and amazing features you spent months discovering in Visual Basic 6? Imagine you could read just one book and regain all of that knowledge. Imagine a book that clearly shows you how to do practically everything you want in .NET – and provides real-life code to get you there. Imagine a book that goes beyond the basics, yet doesn’t get bogged down in detail, a book that will save you hours. That’s what this book is all about; it is the number one book for all your VB.NET code demands.