Mastering Visual C# .NET is the best resource for getting everything you can out of the new C# language and the .NET Framework. You'll master C# language essentials, quickly taking advantage of the many improvements it offers over C++ and see tons of examples that show you all the ways that .NET can make your programming more efficient and your applications more powerful. You'll learn how to create stand-alone applications, as well as build Windows, web, and database applications. You'll even see how to develop web services—a technology that holds great promise for the future of distributed application.

Coverage includes:

* Mastering the fundamentals and advanced aspects of the C# language
* Using Visual Studio .NET for increased coding productivity and debugging
* Creating distributed applications with remoting and web services
* Understanding object-oriented concepts
* Delivering data across the Internet with web services
* Using XML to communicate with other applications
* Accessing databases with ADO.NET
* Building Windows applications
* Creating web applications using ASP.NET
* Reading and writing data from/to files or the Internet
* Using advanced data structures to store and manipulate information
* Using multi-threading for greater application efficiency
* Using reflection to manipulate running code
* Building distributed applications with remoting and web services
* Securing code and authenticating users
* Using built-in encryption facilities
* Making your applications world-ready
* Parsing strings with regular expressions
* Using delegates to handle runtime events
* Programming defensively with exception handling

Since the emergence of Google Maps 12 months ago, Ajax programming techniques have become one of the hottest topics in the programming arena. To date, the frameworks available for creating these applications have been complex and have separated the development of the client–side Ajax (on the user’s machine) from the server–side supporting technology (on the company’s machines). This separation has made development slow and difficult.

ASP.NET AJAX is Microsoft’s solution to this problem. ASP.NET AJAX (formerly code–named Atlas) is a set of extensions to the existing ASP.NET 2.0 technology that provides you with a fast-and-simple environment to create Ajax applications. Microsoft has combined Ajax with ASP.NET technology and provided a unified set of development tools within Visual Studio 2005. For the first time, Ajax applications can be developed seamlessly in conjunction with a supporting technology.

Foundations of ASP.NET AJAX (written by Laurence Moroney the author of Apress successful Foundations of Atlas) gives you a detailed grounding in how ASP.NET AJAX works. It takes you swiftly through the basic principles of Ajax, then deep into the heart of the technology, where every namespace is discussed and every function considered. By the end of the book, you’ll know all the essentials to confidently produce cutting-edge ASP.NET AJAX applications swiftly and professionally. You will not need any reference beyond this book.

This guide is strikingly different from other books on Microsoft ADO.NET. Rather than load you down with theory, the new edition of ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook gives you more than 200 coding solutions and best practices for real problems you're likely to face with this technology using Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET 3.5 platform. Organized to help you find the topic and specific recipe you need quickly and easily, this book is more than just a handy compilation of cut-and-paste C# code. ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook also offers clear explanations of how and why each code solution works, and warns you of potential pitfalls so you can learn to adapt the book's problem-solving techniques to different situations. This collection of timesaving recipes covers vital topics including: Connecting to data Retrieving and managing data Transforming and analyzing data Modifying data Binding data to .NET user interfaces Optimizing .NET data access Enumerating and maintaining database objects Maintaining database integrity Ideal for ADO.NET programmers at all levels, from the relatively inexperienced to the most sophisticated, this new edition covers the significant 3.5 upgrade, including new programming tools such as LINQ. ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook offers a painless way for those of you who prefer to learn by doing when it comes to expanding your skills and productivity.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is the easiest way to produce and consume Web services on the Microsoft platform. With .NET 3.5, WCF has been extensively revamped–and Visual Studio 2008 gives developers powerful new tools for utilizing it. Essential Windows Communication Foundation shows developers exactly how to make the most of WCF with .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008.

Drawing on extensive experience working with early adopters, three Microsoft insiders systematically address the topics developers ask about WCF. The authors approach each subject with practical advice and present best practices, tips, and tricks for solving problems. Throughout, you’ll find detailed explanations, solutions for the “pain points” of WCF development, and an extensive collection of reusable code examples.

A Developer's Notebook is just what it claims to be: the often-frantic scribbling and notes that a true-blue alpha geek mentally makes when working with a new language, API, or project. It's the no-nonsense code that solves problems, stripped of page-filling commentary that often serves more as a paperweight than an epiphany. It's hackery, focused not on what is nifty or might be fun to do when you've got some free time (when's the last time that happened?), but on what you need to simply "make it work." This isn't a lecture, folksit's a lab. If you want a lot of concept, architecture, and UML diagrams, I'll happily and proudly point you to our animal and nutshell books.

If you want every answer to every problem under the sun, our omnibus cookbooks are killer. And if you are into arcane and often quirky uses of technology, hacks books simply rock. But if you're a coder, down to your core, and you just want to get on with it, then you want a Developer's Notebook. Coffee stains and all, this is from the mind of a developer to yours, barely even cleaned up enough for print. I hope you enjoy it…we sure had a good time writing them.

This book is written for programmers who are already familiar with previous version of C# (C# 1.0 or 1.1) and who have used a previous version of Visual Studio .NET (either 2002 or 2003) to build Windows (Windows Forms) or web-based (ASP.NET) applications. My aim is to introduce you, through a series of hands-on labs, to the new features of the C# 2.0 language, the .NET 2.0 Framework, and the Visual Studio 2005 developer environment.