Title Details

Bill Evjen is an active proponent of .NET technologies and community-based learning initiatives for .NET. He has been actively involved with .NET since the first bits were released in 2000. In the same year, Bill founded the St. Louis .NET User Group (www.stlnet.org), one of the world’s first such groups. Bill is also the founder and former executive director of the International .NET Association (www.ineta.org), which represents more than 500,000 members worldwide.
Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Bill is an acclaimed author and speaker on ASP.NET and XML Web Services. He has authored or co-authored more than 15 books, including Professional ASP.NET 3.5, Professional C# 2008, ASP.NET Professional Secrets, XML Web Services for ASP.NET, and Web Services Enhancements: Understanding the WSE for Enterprise Applications (all published by Wiley). In addition to writing, Bill is a speaker at numerous conferences, including DevConnections, VSLive, and TechEd. He also works closely with Microsoft as a Microsoft Regional Director and an MVP.
Bill is the technical architect for Lipper (www.lipperweb.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Reuters, the international news and financial services company. He graduated from Western Washington University in Bellingham,Washington, with a Russian language degree. When he isn’t tinkering on the computer, he can usually be found at his summer house in Toivakka, Finland. You can reach Bill at [email protected].

Billy Hollis is an author and software consultant based in Nashville, Tennessee. Billy was co-author of the first book ever published on Visual Basic .NET, as well as many other books on software development. He is a member of the Microsoft Regional Director program and a Microsoft MVP. In 2002, Billy was selected as one of the original .NET ‘‘Software Legends.’’ He is heavily involved with consulting, training, and development on the .NET platform, focusing on architecture, smart-client development, commercial packages, and user-interface technologies. He regularly speaks on software development at major conferences all over the world, including Microsoft’s PDC and TechEd events, DevConnections, VSLive, and architecture events such as the Patterns and Practices Architect Summit.

Bill Sheldon is a software architect and engineer, originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Holding a degree in computer science from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Bill has been actively employed as a software engineer since resigning his commission with the United States Navy. He is a Microsoft MVP for Visual Basic employed as a principal engineer with InterKnowlogy in Carlsbad, California, and works as an instructor for Visual Basic–related courses at the University of California San Diego Extension.
In addition to writing books, Bill has published dozens of articles, including the Developer Update Newsletter, SQL Server Magazine feature articles, and other Penton publications. He is an established online presenter for MSDN and speaks at live events such as VSLive, DevConnections, Office Developers Conference, and community events such as user groups and code camp. Bill is an avid cyclist and is active in the fight against diabetes.

Kent Sharkey is an independent consultant who lives and codes in Comox, British Columbia. Before going solo, Kent worked at Microsoft as a technical evangelist and content strategist, promoting the use of .NET technologies. He lives with his wife, Margaret, and three ‘‘children’’ — Squirrel, Cica, and Toffee.

Introduction xxxi

Chapter 1: Visual Basic 2008 Core Elements 1

Chapter 2: Object Syntax Introduction 49

Chapter 3: Object-Oriented Programming 101

Chapter 4: The Common Language 193

Chapter 5: Localization 219

Chapter 6: Generics 247

Chapter 7: Namespaces 271

Chapter 8: Exception Handling and Debugging 299

Chapter 9: Data Access with ADO.NET 3.5 327

Chapter 10: Using XML in Visual Basic 2008 379

Chapter 11: LINQ 437

Chapter 12: Security in the .NET Framework 481

Chapter 13: Visual Studio 2008 537

Chapter 14: Working with SQL Server 599

Chapter 15: Windows Forms 647

Chapter 16: Windows Forms Advanced Features 697

Chapter 17: Windows Presentation Foundation 727

Chapter 18: Integrating WPF and Windows Forms 779

Chapter 19: Working with ASP.NET 3.5 801

Chapter 20: ASP.NET 3.5 Advanced Features 839

Chapter 21: Silverlight Development 897

Chapter 22: Visual Studio Tools for Office 915

Chapter 23: Assemblies 955

Chapter 24: Deployment 977

Chapter 25: Working with Classic COM and Interfaces 1019

Chapter 26: Threading 1045

Chapter 27: Windows Workflow Foundation 1079

Chapter 28: XML Web Services 1105

Chapter 29: Remoting 1145

Chapter 30: Enterprise Services 1173

Chapter 31: Network Programming 1201

Chapter 32: Windows Communication Foundation 1235

Chapter 33: Windows Services 1267

Chapter 34: Visual Basic and the Internet 1297

Appendix A: The Visual Basic Compiler 1331

Appendix B: Visual Basic Power Packs Tools 1347

Appendix C: Visual Basic Resources 1361

Index 1363