ASP.NET: Tips, Tutorials, and Code

With a foreword by Microsoft's Mark Anders, Professional ASP.NET consists of 19 chapters written by seven of today's leading experts in ASP.NET. These authors are professional developers who create ASP.NET applications, teach, run well-known ASP.NET Web sites, either within or outside of Microsoft. The tutorial framework for each chapter includes:

• A brief introduction, explaining the concept.
• A code example, illustrating the concept.
• A piece-by-piece explanation of the code.

Most examples employ VB.NET, but there are also additional C# examples within each chapter, and all of the example programs will be available at the book's web site in both VB.NET and C#.

The code examples in this book are based upon the ASP.NET Beta2 specifications, a functionally complete version of the software.

Lead author Scott Mitchell is the editor and founder of 4GuysFromRolla.com, one of the largest ASP resource sites on the Web. He has been avidly using and writing about Active Server Pages since January 1998: he's written several hundred ASP-related articles on 4Guys along with authoring numerous beginner-level and advanced level books on Active Server Pages. He is the author of two well-regarded and widely read books on Active Server Pages: Teach Yourself Active Server Pages 3.0 in 21 Days and Designing Active Server Pages. Scott is a passionate developer whose love for ASP and desire to help others are well known among the ASP community.

Stephen Walther is a cofounder of Superexpert. Superexpert offers ASP.NET training to companies and individuals (see www.AspWorkshops.com), produces ASP.NET controls (see www.SuperexpertControls.com), and offers a community Web site on ASP.NET and other Microsoft Technologies (see www.Superexpert.com). He is also very involved with the Seattle ASP.NET Users Group (see www.AspUsers.org). He is the author of three books on Active Server Pages: ASP.NET Unleashed, Active Server Pages Unleashed, and Teach Yourself E-Commerce with ASP in 21 Days.

Doug Seven, born and raised in Seattle, WA, is one of the co-founders of the .NET training company, DotNetJunkies.com. Doug comes to DotNetJunkies.com by way of technical roles at Nordstrom, Microsoft and GiftCertificates.com, and as a Training Specialist at Seattle Coffee Company. As the son of a programmer, Doug was destined to become a developer. Growing up around computers, his career began at the tender age of 11 writing "Choose Your Own Adventure" games in BASIC on a TRS-80, (unfortunately none of his groundbreaking work from this period survived). His first professional IT job was as a lead for the long-term data storage and disaster recovery group in a dual-IBM Mainframe environment at Nordstrom. After a seven-year sojourn as a rock star (seriously!), Doug took on the role of Technical Lead in Microsoft's Developer Support group. After leaving Microsoft, Doug worked as a developer in digital certificate enablement technology for GiftCertificates.com before leaving to pursue life running his own company. DotNetJunkies.com provides hands-on training in ASP.NET and ADO.NET data access.

Donny Mack, native of Washington State is one of the co-founders of DotNetJunkies.com, the training company solely dedicated to ASP.NET and ADO.NET. DotNetJunkies.com is also a free online centralized resource website used by .NET developers to feed their .NET passion. Prior to founding DotNetJunkies.com with Doug Seven, Mack worked at Microsoft Corporation as a Visual InterDev/ASP Support Professional. Mack's need for bleeding edge technology is such that he spends his waking hours, (and some of his non-waking hours), writing code and developing content for DotNetJunkies.com. Mack's real enjoyment comes from watching attendants of DotNetJunkies.com's training courses walk away as obsessed as he is with .NET.

Chris Payne has had a passion for computers and writing since a young age. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University and supported himself through college as an independent consultant and writer of technical articles, focused on Web development. Currently making his home in Orlando, Florida with his fiancée, he works as a Web developer and is continuing his career as an author, both of technical and fictional material.

Billy Anders is a technologist whose zest for the dynamic can be seen in his contributions, as a Senior Consultant in the Advanced Technology Group of Microsoft Consulting Services in Redmond, WA. Over the past several years, Billy has focused on applications based on Microsoft technologies for both retail industry and enterprise customers. Billy is committed to teaching, as well as learning exciting, innovative web application programming technologies. While this is his first book project, he has lectured and written numerous articles on a variety of subjects including IIS, SQL Server, ASP and ASP.NET. When not exercising his mind, he exercises his spirit by motorcycling, snowboarding, and countless hours in the gym.

Adam Nathan is a Software Design Engineer on the Microsoft .NET Developer Platform QA team. Adam's focus is the Common Language Runtime-the core of the .NET platform--and its interoperability with COM. For the past two years, he has witnessed and influenced the design decisions that have shaped the product, and thus is able to give a unique perspective when explaining this technology to the reader. Adam has seen the areas of .NET with which programmers frequently struggle, and is armed with plenty of tips and tricks to share.

Dan Wahlin is an independent consultant for Wahlin Consulting and also founded XML for ASP.NET Developers (http://www.XMLforASP.NET) which focuses on using XML and Web Services in Microsoft's .NET platform. He also works as a corporate trainer for Global Knowledge. Previously, Dan worked as an enterprise Web site manager, director of Internet/wireless development, and as senior consultant for a global systems integrator. Dan enjoys writing technical articles on XML-related topics for Visual Studio Magazine, ASPToday.com, and is a regular columnist in XML Magazine. Dan co-authored Professional Windows DNA (Wrox Press) and authored XML for ASP.NET Developers (Sams).