MSN and Windows Live: Books

The Ultimate CSS Reference - Book Review

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:25:32 GMT

Title :	The Ultimate CSS Reference
Author :	Tommy Olsson
	Paul O'Brien
ISBN :	0980285852
Price :	$44.95
Rating :	4 out of 5

This reference book can really be considered a companion to the previous book I reviewed recently, the Ultimate HTML Reference although you can use this as a standalone book if you wish.

The ultimate CSS reference by Tommy Olsson and Paul O'Brien is exactly what it says, a reference guide. As with all books however I’ve read this one cover to cover. The book covers every single CSS keyword, selector, pseudo-class and corresponding attribute known (including some that aren’t even in the official ratified W3C standard but are supported by certain browsers and some that are currently in the standard but aren't supported by any of the major browsers) from CSS version 1 right through to the latest CSS 3.

The book is very well laid out and easy to look up as a reference with chapters on layout, list styles, box properties etc. Next to this is a quick reference stating whether or not the attribute is inherited, it's initial value, which version of the official W3C specification it comes from and a quick browser support reference stating whether it’s fully supported by the browser, partially supported, not supported at all or whether the implementation is buggy for a particular browser. This is followed by a description of what the attribute does, any values that it takes followed by a more complete browser compatibility list. The list covers the major browsers that are currently out from IE5.5 through IE7, Firefox 1.0 through 2.0, Safari 1.3 through 3.0 and Opera 9.2. Following this is a brief description of any compatibility issues as listed .

As with any book of this nature, basically it is out of date virtually as it’s printed. With Firefox 3.0 and Opera 9.5 just being released and Internet Explorer 8.0 just around the corner. However this and it's companion Ultimate HTML reference are definitely two books that I'd love to see updated once the new set of browsers are out.

Scattered throughout the book are numerous references to W3C RFCs, web sites showing compatibility issues and differences between the way various browsers handle the CSS etc. that are very useful.

This book is a must for any web developer no matter which programming language you use to build your web sites. Combine it's sister book with this one and you really do have the ultimate web reference sitting at your fingertips. No more looking through obscure RFC's. When you're designing a web site and come across a quirk in how you thought something should have been laid out, or a CSS selector then simply reach for this book and it will tell you if indeed it is a bug or whether you are just implementing incorrectly.
Tommy and Paul should be proud of what they have produced and this book should grace every web developers desk and be within fingertip reach.

Technorati Tags: The Ultimate CSS Reference, Tommy Olsson, Paul O'Brien, Web Programming, CSS, Stylesheets

Professional Windows Live Programming - Book Review

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:46:26 GMT

Technorati Tags: Windows Live, Programming, Wrox Press, Professional Windows Live Programming, Jon Arking, Book Review

Title :	Professional Windows Live Programming (Programmer to Programmer)
Author :	Jon Arking
ISBN :	0470110015
Price :	$39.99
Rating :	3.5 out of 5

As far as I’m aware this is the only book currently on the market that covers Windows Live Programming and therefore in quite unique in that aspect. I was actually quite surprised to hear of this book as I am a Windows Live Microsoft MVP and so it was with great enthusiasm that I delved into it and read it cover to cover.

The book is split into 11 chapters, apart from the first few which gives overviews of windows live, each chapter basically covers a single technology, ranging from better known technologies like Virtual Earth, messenger and Live ID to lesser known ones like Custom Domains and Live Expo.

With each chapter/technology, Jon gives a brief introduction to what it actually is then dives straight into the available SDK and shows you how you can use that particular technology for yourself and how to integrate it in with your own web applications. He doesn’t cover every single API call available for each technology but does cover what will be the most widely used situations.

As mentioned Windows Live technologies are mainly web based and the available API’s and there to be used within your own web sites. In order to use this book Jon has assumed that you already know technologies and languages such as Javascript, HTML, CSS etc. If you don’t or if you’re just getting started in web programming then this book isn’t for you, yet.

Microsoft has made available a great number of technologies through Windows Live including authentication, mapping and search. Each of these potentially has it’s place in your web site. There is a terms of use for each technology however unless you’re a very heavy hitter, essentially all these technologies are free for you to include in your applications.

Overall this is a great book for an introduction to programming using the various Windows Live technologies and one that I thoroughly recommend picking up and reading. If this is the case then why did I score it higher? This book was published in 2007 and Microsoft have been very aggressive in their releases and updates to these technologies. Unfortunately this book, as every other computer book will eventually become, is now out of date. Some of the technologies that Jon covers like Windows Live Expo, Microsoft is no longer supporting. Other technologies like Virtual Earth have been updated with new API’s and features and Microsoft have also released other technologies not covered in this book for example the Windows Live Web Messenger API. The question therefore isn’t why didn’t I rate this book higher, but why did I rate it as high as I did? This book gives you an excellent grounding in various Microsoft Windows Live technologies and the things you learn in this book can be applied to the latest releases. So I would recommend picking up this book, reading through it, then visiting http://dev.live.com to get the most up to date information regarding the API that you are interested in.

The Ultimate HTML Reference - Review

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:14:15 GMT

Title :	The Ultimate HTML Reference
Author :	Ian Lloyd
ISBN :	0980285887
Price :	$44.95
Rating :	4 out of 5

As I’m currently off work due to surgery I thought there’s no better time to read some of the books that I haven’t gotten around to read yet. As such here is the first of my reviews for this week.

In previous years I was never very enchanted with Sitepoint titles however over the past year or so Sitepoint seem to have upped their game and have published a number of fairly good titles. This book being one of them.

The ultimate HTML reference by Ian Lloyd is exactly what it says, a reference guide. Although I’ve read the book cover to cover it is meant more as a reference book than a straight read. The book covers every single HTML/XHTML tag and corresponding attribute known (including some that aren’t even in the official ratified HTML standard but are supported by certain browsers, mainly during the browser wars from a few years ago) from HTML version 1 right through to HTML 4.01 and also includes XHTML through version 1.1. Unfortunately you won’t find any HTML 5 or XHTML 2.0 tags or extensions in the book but that is mainly because these haven’t been ratified by the W3C yet.

The book is very well laid out with each each attribute to a tag immediately following the tag and a quick reference stating exactly what tag the attribute is associated with (which is handy for a reference guide). Next to this is a quick reference stating whether or not the tag or attribute has been deprecated, whether it’s required, the version of HTML or XHTML that it was introduced and a quick browser support reference stating whether it’s fully supported by the browser, partially supported, not supported at all or whether the implementation is buggy for a particular browser. This is followed by a description of what the tag or attribute does, any values that it takes followed by a more complete browser compatibility list. The list covers the major browsers that are currently out from IE5.5 through IE7, Firefox 1.0 through 2.0, Safari 1.3 through 3.0 and Opera 9.2. This is followed by a brief description of any compatibility issues as listed finally followed by a list of other relevant tags or attributes. As with any book of this nature, basically it is out of date virtually as it’s printed. With Firefox 3.0 and Opera 9.5 just being released and Internet Explorer 8.0 just around the corner, however there are mentions of these scattered throughout the book e.g. the “X-UA-Compatible” attribute of the http-equiv that was introduced with IE8. Unfortunately since the book went to print Microsoft have changed their mind and this tag is no longer necessary to put IE8 into full compatibility mode as it will ship in that mode as default.

There are also numerous references to web articles like RFC’s that the reader can use for further information should they be inclined. Also there are tips as to what CSS styling you should use instead if an attribute be deprecated.

This leads me to one of my biggest complaints about this good. Reading through it you just get the feeling that as well as the HTML/XHTML reference, there should also be a CSS reference. It just seems so natural a fit to this type of book, however as the title suggests this book only covers HTML/XHTML. As such Ian Lloyd has done an insanely outstanding job of providing all the information you could ever want about any HTML element or attribute. This is definitely a book that will be sitting on my desk and one that I will dip into every now and again and one that you should have too. I just hope that there is a companion book in the works detailing CSS in the same manner.

Technorati Tags: The Ultimate HTML Reference,Ian Lloyd,HTML,Programming,Book Review

Review - Advanced Asp.Net Ajax Server Controls for .Net Framework 3.5

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:43:18 GMT

Title :	Advanced ASP.NET AJAX Server Controls For .NET Framework 3.5
Author :	Adam Calderon
	Joel Rumerman
ISBN :	0321514440
Price :	$49.99
Rating :	4.5 out of 5

I got given an advanced "Draft Manuscript" copy of this book from Pearson (the publishers) whilst at Tech-Ed which is why I can write this review before the book is officially published.
First off, let me say that I love this series of "Microsoft.Net Development Series" by Addison Wesley. For information regarding virtually anything .Net, this is really the first series of books that you should take a look at. Most of the books are written by the product teams themselves however this title is not (although the authors have had a great deal of feedback and input from the product teams involved).
This book isn't really about learning Asp.Net Ajax. It takes a more specific topic that little has been written about and the authors have done an excellent job in covering it from end to end. That niche, is developing server controls that integrate Asp.Net Ajax, giving them more functionality and updating web controls to the "Web 2.0" style controls a lot of companies are developing at the moment.
The book starts off with a quick overview of some of the more esoteric aspects of Javascript although it doesn't actually teach you Javascript, it is assumed that you already know this, it gives you a good overview of the basics on how the Microsoft Asp.Net Ajax framework has been written and sets you up to better understand it and extend it for your own needs.
Following this is a chapter on the new "Types" that the Asp.Net Ajax framework introduces as first class components and also how to extend the framework, adding your own classes, interfaces etc. to it.
Without going chapter by chapter, the book covers everything you actually need to know, and a lot more, on how to integrate Ajax into your own Asp.Net server controls. It covers the differences between the Asp.Net Ajax framework 1.0 and that which was released and integrated into the .Net Framework 3.5 where applicable (the book is intended for the .Net Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008).
There are plenty of code examples throughout the book, building on what was covered in previous chapters you gain a thorough understanding of exactly what this book sets out to do.
The writing style isn't as stolid as most other technical books and is actually easy to read and flowing.
There are a few typos and mis-spellings in the copy that I have but I'm sure that these will be resolved for the final published version.
If you develop Asp.Net web server controls then this is a book you must have. Even if you don't program server controls but just do standard Asp.Net pages, this book gives you a lot of information about how to use Asp.Net Ajax in your projects. Overall a highly recommended book.

Technorati Tags: Advanced Asp.Net Ajax Server Controls, Addison Wesley, Book Review, Ajax, Server Controls, Visual Studio 2008, Asp.Net

Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date Review

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:52:19 GMT

Title :	Essential Silverlight 2 Up-to-Date
Author :	Christian Wenz
ISBN :	0596519982
Price :	$34.99
Rating :	3.5 out of 5

The first thing to you will notice about this book is that it doesn't look like any other O'Reilly book that's out there. It has a nice transparent cover (with the books title printed on it) and is ring bound. The next thing that you'll notice when you pick up the book and open it as that fully half of the pages inside it are completely blank. So the obvious question is why would you want to pay for either a very thin book or just half a book depending on your point view.
The reason for this is that O'Reilly are trying a new approach to new technology books. As you may know, Silverlight 2 is still in early beta at the moment. The reasoning behind the book is that O'Reilly can get a book into your hands as soon as a Beta comes out, let your learn the technology and then when new builds/beta's become available, update the book to reflect the changes between the latest build and the previous one.
O'Reilly are giving you two options for doing this. The first is that you can purchase the pre-printed updates which they will send you and you simply plug these updates into your book. The second option is that they're making these updates available online for free. So you can simply use the blank pages provided in the book to print the updates yourself and insert them into the book. Either way, you will have an up to date book as the beta progresses without having to buy a new edition of the book each time.
I think this is a terrific idea and one that O'Reilly will continue to do for other technologies, not just this Silverlight book.

Now onto the content itself. When you start reading through Essential Silverlight 2, you may be forgiven for thinking that the author is actually talking about Silverlight 1.1 and not 2.0. This quickly changes however and the author starts telling you differences between the two and changes from using client side Javascript to client side C# using the new compact .Net framework that Silverlight incorporates. I have no doubt that a lot of the material in the book is taken from a previous one covering Silverlight 1.1 although all that is still there is relevant to 2.0 as well, e.g. A quick introduction to XAML etc. The author does point out places in which Silverlight 2.0 differs from 1.1 however.

For the moment there really isn't that much content in the book and you can easily read the whole book in a couple of days, however this plays in to the new books format in that additions, amendments etc. will be provided online for free for you to just print and plug-in.

This book will currently give you the basics that you need to know for Silverlight, how to create animations, audio and video, it touches on forms and events etc. and how to plug these into your web application. Once you have the basics you can play with the SDK and get more. I hope that in the updates the author goes into more depth on the new compact .Net framework that comes with Silverlight, what's included, what's been dropped etc. so users can take full advantage of client side .Net. For now the book serves as a good introduction however lacking in in-depth learning. My rating reflects this however given that updates will be made available for free I've also marked this up slightly to incorporate that aspect of it.
If I was just reviewing this new platform that O'Reilly has come up with then I'd give it a full 5 out of 5, it would be my second ever. I think the concept is excellent however at present the book is slightly lacking in details.

Technorati Tags: Essential Silverlight 2.0, Silverlight, Asp.Net, Web Development

Review - Pro Linq Language Integrated Query in C# 2008

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:08:05 GMT

Technorati Tags: Pro Linq Language Integrated Query in C# 2008, review, Book Review, LINQ

Title :	Pro LINQ: Language Integrated Query in C# 2008
Author :	Joseph C. Rattz
ISBN :	1590597893
Price :	$44.99
Rating :	4 out of 5

Unless you've been living in a cave somewhere for the past year, you're bound to have heard of Linq, one of the major additions to the Microsoft.Net 3.5 framework. Some people however have the wrong impression of Linq, thinking that it's a new technology that will take over from T-SQL (or PL-SQL) and is limited to an easier way of querying databases. However Linq is so much more. At it's base Linq is an underlying extensible framework. With the release of the Microsoft.Net 3.5 framework, Microsoft included a couple of extensions, Linq to SQL being the most well known and Linq to XML.
Joseph Rattz's Pro Linq (Language Integrated Query in C# 2008) covers both released extensions as well as the base Linq framework (however he does not go into how to extend Linq in this book).
Unusually Joseph starts the book, not with an brief introduction or outline but dives straight into code. His writing style is easy and flowing and he covers the topics very well indeed.
The book is split into the three main parts, first covering Linq itself then going a section on Linq to XML and finally a section on Linq to SQL. The two extensions build on the knowledge presented within the first section.
Joseph speaks in-depth about the two main methods of Linq queries, deferred operators and non-deferred and covers each of the language extensions in depth. This however is one of my main gripes about this book (but similarly is also one of it's pluses). In covering each language extension Joseph is basically copying and pasting from a previous extension and amending it slightly for the difference. This feels like he's just trying to fill up space in the book. You look at any page in the non-deferred chapter of the book and count how many times he's included the code for creating an array of US presidents. Now this code snippet takes up 8 lines of the book each time it's there. Multiply that by hundred or so times that it's included in a code sample and the book could easily have been 2/3 of it's 600 pages.
What I meant by Joseph basically copies and pastes from a previous language extension, is that say a language extension has three constructors, Joseph starts with the base constructor, basically uses the same text and sample code for the next constructor but changes it slightly for the difference in that constructor and so on. So again the book could easily have been reduced in size as when you read through it you're basically reading the exact same thing you read for the initial language extension constructor/method call.
Now don't get me wrong. This has it's drawbacks, but I think it's also very good in that this makes for an excellent reference book. You can go directly to the constructor/method call that you're interested and you have the text and sample there rather than having to read everything for that whole language extension. I think it's also great that Joseph covers every possible combination of method call, something most books do not.
Overall this book is aimed at two types of people. Those that don't have any experience in coding with Linq. It teaches you most of what you'll need to know and is easy to follow. And it's also aimed at being a reference manual.
For the most part I'm not that impressed with APress publications however this book is a worthy addition to your collection.

Building a Web 2.0 Portal with Asp.Net 3.5

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:49:30 GMT

Technorati Tags: Building a Web 2.0 Portal with Asp.Net 3.5, asp.net 3.5, Book Review, O'Reilly Press, AJAX, Windows Workflow

Title :	Building a Web 2.0 Portal with ASP.NET 3.5
Author :	Omar AL Zabir
ISBN :	0596510500
Price :	$44.99
Rating :	5 out of 5

Once in a while I will get a book to review that makes you think "Why can't all books be like this one?". Building a Web 2.0 Portal with Asp.Net 3.5 is one of those books. If you program web sites using Microsoft Asp.Net then drop what you're doing just now and go get this book immediately. It is the best book I've read in a long time.

The book (as the title suggests) explains how to code a web portal using all the latest Microsoft technologies. There is an accompanying open-source web site and the book basically explains how the site was put together. Doesn't sound like much for me heap such praise on it, however the accompanying web site is basically a framework for a fully functional professional web portal, based upon Pageflakes.com. Omar is the co-founder and CTO of Pageflakes and this book not only details and explains the actual code for the accompanying web site but also has numerous tips, tricks, thought patterns and explanations of decisions scattered throughout. These are all based on live, highly scalable, professional sites. I haven't read so much good information packed into such a short amount of space in a long time.

The book is fairly short weighing in at around 280 pages and Omar has a good flowing writing style that makes this book a very easy read.
This book however is not for people new to programming Asp.Net web sites and a good understanding of a multitude of technologies are required (Asp.Net, Windows Workflow, Asp.Net AJAX, XML, CSS etc.). In places where deemed necessary Omar will give a brief outline of a new technology and why it was used for example he gives a short explanation on Lambda expressions and the new "??" C# operator. The book starts off by explaining N-Tier architecture, why this was chosen, the benefits of doing it this way etc. Progresses through covering the code in manageable and logical chunks (front end, widgets, database layer etc.) and finishes off with an excellent chapter on deployment, hosting and production challenges taken from his real life experience with Pageflakes.com. In this chapter he explains about such things as web farming, which RAID architecture to use through to problems that were encountered after patching a server using windows update.

Rest assured that you will be coming back to these pages time and again for the excellent tips and tricks, both code-wise and architectural wise. This is just one of those books that jumps out and stands head and shoulders above other books in the same vein.

Head First C# - Review

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:57:55 GMT

Technorati Tags: Head First, C#, C Sharp, Head First C#, O Reilly, Book Review

Title :	Head First C# (Brain-Friendly Guides)
Author :	Andrew Stellman
	Jennifer Greene
ISBN :	0596514824
Price :	$49.99
Rating :	3 out of 5

I had just started reading this book and virtually instantly came across a very big no-no. Page 11 of the book is entitled "There are no dumb questions" and there it list about 1/2 a dozen fairly basic question and answers. However one them simply jumps out and is indeed extremely wrong. The question was "Can I change the names of files the IDE generates for me?" and the answer given does state that you can change the names however "we recommend you don't change filenames unless you've got a really good reason to." It doesn't matter whether this is a book for professional coders or for those that have never written a single line of code in their lives, this is a very wrong answer to give. It should have stated that yes you can and should change the filenames from their default names to ones that make sense for your project.
Was this a sign of things to come for the rest of the book? Well both yes and no.

First off this book is aimed at those new to programming in C# and definitely not aimed at those who already know and have programmed in C# using a previous version of the .Net Framework and looking for a guide to what's new in C# and the .Net Framework 3.0.
That being said, if you're new to C#, this book takes a refreshing stance on learning the language compared with other texts. There are plenty of practical exercises scattered throughout the book to test what you have learned along with good explanations of the material covered.
The book is also aimed at Windows programming and not Asp.Net programming with C# so if you're new to C# and are looking to program your own website then this isn't the book for you.
It does cover a lot of the basics that you will need to know to get started programming and even has a chapter on LINQ which, although the book states it's for .Net 3.0 is actually part of the .Net 3.5 framework.
One point however, as mentioned above, is that the book does teach some fairly bad habits and I have therefore marked my review down slightly due to this.
That being said, this is an excellent book for complete newcomers to the C# language.

Introducing Microsoft ASP.Net AJAX - Review

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 23:42:51 GMT

Technorati Tags: Dino Esposito, ASP.Net, AJAX, Review

Dino Esposito is a well established and respected author writing numerous books about ASP.Net over the years. I picked up a copy of his latest book, Introducing Microsoft Asp.Net AJAX as soon at it was released at this years Tech-Ed conference in Orlando. Asp.Net AJAX had just recently gone RTW and I thought it was a good time to delve into this much hyped technology.

Lots of people, having downloaded and played around with the beta of this product (code named Atlas) basically didn't get very much past the additional Toolkit download and the UpdatePanel control. Dino rectifies this situation and explains there is so much more to the ASP.Net Ajax framework.
The book starts off fairly complicated and you need to have a very good understanding and background in Javascript to get the most out it, however as the book progresses, the foundations laid in the early chapters begin to make more sense and understanding of the concepts congeal. Unfortunately I can see a lot of people being put off by the first couple of chapters and not getting past them to the other topics explained in the book.

Dino explains the concepts of the ASP.Net AJAX framework, how Microsoft have basically mimicked the Asp.Net framework using client side Javascript so that Asp.Net developers feel more at home using. There are numerous code samples scattered throughout the book explaining how to create your own client side classes, how the prototype system works etc.

In later chapters Dino explains about the Toolkit which is a separate download and addition to the base framework, gives examples of each of the main toolkit controls, explains in depth about how to make out of band calls to Web Services and the differences between web service calls and page methods, along with which to use when, the pros and cons, and finishes up with a chapter taking apart one of the freely downloadable starter kits and adding AJAX support to it.

For an "Introduction" title, this book is actually fairly heavy going and it does cover a lot of ground, however in places I would have liked to have seen more indepth explanations and examples. There are a lot of things that have been left out of the book although overall it is a very good book and good introduction to the Asp.Net AJAX framework.

One other thing is that scattered throughout the book is references to the Asp.Net AJAX framework being updated and changed for the Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas) .Net 3.5 Framework in which Asp.Net AJAX will become an integral part, however there is no details as to what exactly is changing and how to use the new .Net 3.5 Frameworks Asp.Net AJAX. Part of this I suspect is that the new framework has just been released and this book was published roughly 4-5 months beforehand.

Overall a good book and if you're looking to start developing using Asp.Net AJAX then it is a good starting place, however parts of this book will soon be outdated with the changes made for the new .Net 3.5 Framework.

Review - The Asp.Net 2.0 Anthology

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:38:54 GMT

Title :	The ASP.NET 2.0 Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks
Author :	Scott Allen
	Jeff Atwood
	Wyatt Barnett
	Jon Galloway
	Phil Haack
ISBN :	098028581X
Price :	$39.95
Rating :	5 out of 5

First off I'll say that this book isn't intended for beginners to Asp.Net. You will need a good understanding of Asp.Net including events and delegates, controls, user and custom controls etc., JavaScript, HTML and C# in order to get the most out of this book.

With that said however I was extremely surprised by this book. The five authors have a done an extremely good job of packing a number of good tips and tricks into the book in a very readable way. The tips and tricks are divided in 17 logical chapters, each one can be read independently of the others, and are presented in a problem/solution format. I think the books introduction covers it well "This is the book I wish I had when I was starting out with Asp.Net."

The 17 chapters cover various topics from user/custom controls to AJAX, Web standards to error handling and each chapter contains little gems that are very useful in real world development scenarios. I have been coding using Asp.Net since an early beta of the product back in late 90's and consider myself to be an experienced developer, however even I managed to glean quite a few good tips from this book.

Rather than pad the book and make it 900-1200 pages as most development books tend to be, the authors have kept the discussions to what you really need to know and inserted references to other materials where necessary. This leads to a fairly compact 550 page book which is packed from start to finish with every day problems and solutions.

I very rarely give out 5 star ratings on book reviews but this one deserves it. In fact this is the first book to receive a 5 star rating from me. If you are an Asp.Net developer using C# (or even Visual Basic for that matter, it's not hard to translate between the two languages), go out and at least have a look at this book. This is one book that will be sitting on my desk next to me.

Technorati Tags: Book Review, The Asp.Net 2.0 Anthology SitePoint

ASP.Net 2.0 MVP Hacks and Tips

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:41:17 GMT

Technorati Tags: ASP.Net, Book Review, MVP

Title :	ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks
Author :	David Yack
	Joe Mayo
	Scott Hanselman
	Fredrik Normén
	Dan Wahlin
	J. Ambrose Little
	Jonathan Goodyear
ISBN :	0764597663
Price :	$39.99
Rating :	3 out of 5

The first thing that you notice about this book is that it's relatively short for a normal computer book. Most books come in at around 1,000+ pages whilst this one is a short 370 pages.
ASP.Net 2.0 MVP Hacks is an update to the previous MVP Hacks title, although there have many changes incorporated into it for ASP.Net 2.0, especially the chapters on Master Page and providers.

The book actually starts a section on "Hacks Revisited" and progresses from there. You can tell from the writing style incorporated where one MVP has written a chapter and another the next chapter or perhaps two different MVP's have written a part of a chapter each. In this respect it actually doesn't lend itself to continuity.

As to the meat of the book, as the title suggests, this is a collection of hacks by Microsoft MVP's, people who know a great deal about the technology. You can use the hacks as if, and in most cases there are good explanations of what the hacks do and how they work therefore giving you ideas for future hacks you can implement yourself. Sadly the chapter on handlers modules doesn't give very good explanations and this is perhaps the lowest level chapter of the book and would therefore require the most explanation.

Although the hacks presented are good with reasonable discussions about each, for the most part they are fairly specific and not really intended for the casual developer but more for the professional, even then the hacks presented are fairly specific, so I wouldn't recommend this book for the masses. Some of the hacks present are either common sense or if you've been working with ASP.Net 2.0 for a while, likely something that you've already come across or had to deal with, whilst others are very good and interesting but in specialized circumstances.

Overall then it's a good book with quite a few useful hacks and enough information for you to take these and create your own, but more of a specialized book for professional developers.

Professional ASP.Net 2.0 Special Edition

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:26:50 GMT

Title :	Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition (Wrox Professional Guides)
Author :	Bill Evjen
	Scott Hanselman
	Devin Rader
	Farhan Muhammad
	Srinivasa Sivakumar
ISBN :	0470041781
Price :	$59.99

Technorati Tags: Wrox Press ASP.Net 2.0 Book Review

First off I would like to say that this book is hardback. Given that it contains over 1500 pages and could easily knock somebody out this is a good thing. There are however plenty of other programming books out there that are 1000+ pages. Why aren't these hardback? Personally I think that books this size should come in hardback and not paperback. So initial rant over lets review this hefty book.

As mentioned this book comes in at over 1500 pages split into 34 chapters and 4 appendixes. The book is really aimed at ASP.Net 1.0/1.1 developers looking to make the move to ASP.Net 2.0 and use the new features it offers although anyone with some .Net experience could pick up this book and find it useful.

The first chapter is really what I would consider a filler. It gives a very brief and high level outline of some of the new features of ASP.Net 2.0 and all that information is presented in more depth in later chapters. Chapter 2 gives a quick run through of the new features of Visual Studio 2005, again at a high level although most of the pertinent new features that you would use on a daily basis are covered.

Chapter 3 starts off by explaining the various options for creating or opening a website, the differences between inline and code behind, the various directives that can be added to the page and moves onto how asp.net handles events and sequence of events. Fairly basic stuff if you've done some previous asp.net coding in the past but useful (in fact essential) if you're new to the asp.net model. If you're coming up from 1.0 or 1.1 you'll find something useful here as asp.net 2.0 has added some new events and directives. It talks about how to handle cross-page postbacks (again new to .net 2.0) and the new inherent folders. Then things get slightly strange in that it jumps in to a fairly advanced topic in the middle of the chapter explaining how to create your own build providers and hook them into your site. The chapter finishes off with a quick explanation of the global.asax file.
If you're new to asp.net then there's a lot of important information contained in this chapter however if you're coming up from .net 1.0/1.1 then you can skim through most of the first half of this chapter.

Chapter 4 starts with an explanation of server controls, the differences between asp controls and html server controls and some of the common properties of each type. Then it goes onto to explain style, inline and using external css files (although it doesn't actually explain css very well at all, e.g. style inheritance) and how to use the visual studio style editor. The part about css just seems to be there for completeness as very little is spent on css itself. If you wish to learn about css and how it interacts with your pages then I'd strongly suggest picking up another book dedicated to the subject. Next we're onto JavaScript and how to include JavaScript in your pages. Again if you wish to learn about JavaScript, pick up a separate book as this book will not teach you anything. In fact some of the examples given are very frowned upon ways of doing things so this brings the whole chapter down as it's potentially teaching bad practices. It does explain how to include JavaScript markup directly in your codes tags , then jumps straight into how to do it server side using RegisterClientScriptBlock etc. No mention of creating <script> tags in the head of your page and nothing about linking your page to an external JavaScript file which seems really odd and a surprising omission (although passing reference is given to these in the server side register statements). Finally the chapter finishes off with a couple of client side callback examples. There is no explanation of the detriments to using this functionality, no references to asp.net Ajax (which basically replaces this functionality is a much better way, although strictly speaking asp.net Ajax isn't anything to do with Asp.Net 2.0 so I can let the book off with this). Again the few pages dedicated to client side callbacks appear to be there for completeness sake rather than anything else.
Overall this is a very poor chapter and one I would recommend skipping completely and getting your information elsewhere.

Chapter 5 is a very quick introduction to some server controls. The reason I say some controls and not just server controls is that the book splits the server controls across 2 separate chapters. Chapter 5 deals with web server controls that were available in asp.net 1.0/1.1 Chapter 6 deals with web server controls that are new to asp.net 2.0. In my opinion this is actually a good way of doing things. If you're already familiar with asp.net 1.0/1.1 then you can basically skim this chapter (although the authors do explain a couple of extra parameters to these controls that are new in 2.0). If you're new to asp.net coding then this you should really read this chapter. It is however a very quick overview of the web server controls giving you just enough information to start using them but nothing more.

As mentioned Chapter 6 is really an extension of Chapter 5 in that it still covers asp.net web server controls but this chapter only covers controls new to asp.net 2.0. It does not cover all the new controls (of which there are over 50) and again only really gives you a brief overview of each of the new controls that it does cover. Of the new controls that it does cover most time is spent on the file upload control (one of the most useful new additions) and the Wizard control (one of the least useful). The other controls in the chapter get fairly terse coverage. I have mixed feeling about both chapters 5 and 6. If you're new to asp.net then both chapters should be read, if you're upgrading to asp.net 2.0 from an earlier release then you can skip chapter and really just read chapter 6. My biggest gripe however is that in both chapters, the controls are minimally covered and doesn't go into enough depth to adequately use the controls in real world scenarios. At least it's a starting point though.

Chapter 7 is all about validation controls. It covers all the validation controls available, talks about client and server side validation, shows you how to turn off client side validation, program your own client side validation in Custom Validator controls etc. As with other chapters so far, if you are new to asp.net then this chapter is definitely worth reading as you will use validator controls extensively in your applications, but nothing much has changed with the validator controls except the addition of groupings so if you're already familiar with asp.net 1.0/1.1 and moving on up to asp.net 2.0 then there isn't much new information to be had.

Chapter 8 deals with the new concept in Asp.Net 2.0 of Master Pages. After a brief overview of what Master Pages are and why they are useful it goes on to explain how to code them, some of the bugs encountered with Master Pages in Visual Studio 2005, how to reference controls in a Master Page from a Content Page and a brief overview on the Page event cycle when Master Pages are involved. There is a brief explanation on how to nest Master Pages and why you may wish to do this although the code example for this section in woefully inadequate for example there's no explanation on how to reference content from the top level Master Page from within a Content page when the Master Pages are nested. The chapter finishes off with a brief section on how to program different Master Pages targeted at different browsers. Overall the information contained in this chapter is useful whether you're new to Asp.Net coding or upgrading from Asp.Net 1.0/1.1 however there are certainly omissions in the chapter. For example there is no mention at all that the client side ID's of your controls get changed when you use Master Pages and if you're coding any sort of Javascript you need to take this into account.

Chapter 9 is all about another new feature introduced in ASP.Net 2.0, themes and skins. The chapter starts off by explaining how to add themes to your site or individual pages and even down to the control level, how to remove themes from controls when it's defined at the page or application level. How inheritance works especially when used in conjunction with master pages. It then goes on to short sections on how to create your own themes and skins, the role of CSS and how to apply it and finishes off with how to programmatically access themes. It's a fairly short chapter and one of the better ones so far covering most of what you'll actually need to know about themes and skins.

Chapter 10 deals with collections and lists. It starts off with an explanation and some examples of the good old Array, how to find objects in arrays, the difference between object identity and equivalence. Then it moves onto the non-generic Arraylist, lists and dictionaries etc. before moving onto what's been added with .Net 2.0 and finishing off with generics. The section on generics is actually quite short but the level of detail gone into throughout the rest of chapter really helps and the section on generics is adequate and well explained. Throughout the chapter the authors go into high level explanations with some code examples of the various interfaces that each collection type uses, the inheritance of the various interfaces and really gives you enough information so that you can include your own custom collections within your code, for example a collection of difference objects, when to use IEnumerable or IList compared to ICollection etc. The information in this chapter is well laid out with the explanation of the interfaces interspersed with the collection of list that actually incorporates it.

With this I finish off the first part of this review. I have covered what you can expect to see in roughly the first third of this massive book. So far I have not been that impressed with the material covered in the book. Yes I realize that you cannot cover everything in detail in a single book when it comes to something as vast as Asp.Net 2.0 but sometimes there may be cases when the trade off of not covering something at all and giving more attention to other aspects makes sense rather than giving cursory high level explanations of everything just for completeness. I have found a lot of things missing in the various chapters so far and full explanations not given for various things. The last two chapters in this first part of the review were the exception. Lets see if the next third of the book fairs any better...