Did you volunteer to create a Web site for the softball team? Is it time to take your small business to the next level and let your customers shop online? Well, you can relax! ASP.NET 3.5 makes creating a dynamic site faster and cleaner than ever before, and ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies makes it easier.

First, you’ll get an introduction to all the tools and terminology you need to understand ASP.NET. If you’ve used earlier versions of ASP.NET and Visual Web Developer, you can probably skip that part and jump right into what’s new in 3.5. You'll make friends with LINQ and SQL, create sites in Visual Web Developer 2008 Express, and much more. Before you know it, you’ll discover how to:

• Integrate data, track shopping cart contents, and whisk away bugs
• Create user interfaces with easy navigation
• Use the ListView control for sophisticated formatting
• Write LINQ queries
• Add a table to a database
• Create an event handler
• Take advantage of the drag 'n' drop feature that lets you write less code
• Put all the features to work to develop dynamic Web applications

The softball team is going to love that Web site, and your customers might enjoy shopping on your site so much that you’ll have to expand your business to fill all the orders! We can’t promise that, of course, but we’re pretty sure that ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies will make creating Web sites easier and a lot more fun.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Go!
Comment: This is not the first ASP.Net book I've read. This is the first one I've enjoyed!-)

Because of this book I'll reconsider my attitude towards the whole series. Suddenly it seems a great idea - get the basics with no pain.

I liked the humor. I liked the fact the author's making it so easy. I like the stress on using the tools and not writing the code by hand.

I key in the samples. Then I look at the code generated by the tools. Then I look at the code sent to the browser.

A great way to learn. And have fun.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: VB ONLY
Comment: This book uses VB only. The web site reference is non existant. The overview should stipulate the strict usage of VB not C#. If you want to use C# do not but this book.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Right Author, the right approach
Comment: I almost didn't by the ASP.NET 3.5 for Dummies. Then I noticed that it was a different author than ASP.NET 2.0 for Dummies and I thought I would give it a look. Bill Hatfield wrote the 'Dummies' book on the previous version and while I found him to be very knowledgeable, I got frustrated because I was trying to learn how to use Visual Studio with ASP.NET and his book didn't provide much help. Ken Cox however "gets it". He wrote the book for use with Visual Studio and by the end of Chapter 4 you're already using AJAX with no difficulty! By chapter 7 you're delving into LINQ! Ken's approach is intelligent and his style works both for the beginner as well as those more seasoned in ASP.NET. Excellent book!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A great enjoyable read
Comment: I am an experienced developer so I only expected to skim over the book to get familiar with any of the new asp.net 3.5 features. I found myself reading every word of every page because the book was actually "entertaining". The writing is very smooth and easy to understand. You feel as if a really good teacher who knows how to relate to people is talking to you.

I was also surprised how deep the book was able to go into each subject. For example Linq is a very complicated subject yet the book does contain enough examples for you to use it in the real world.

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