Product Description
* Uses the popular Problem;Design;Solution format to help readers, especially those who know how to code specific ASP.NET features, learn to "put it all together" into a complete Web application
* Emphasizes n-tier ASP.NET Web application architectural design, something intermediate and advanced ASP.NET developers need and can't find anywhere else
* Current edition is the most popular and discussed book in the p2p.wrox.com reader discussion forums
* Covers registration and membership system, user-selectable themes, content management systems, polls, mailing lists, forums, e-commerce stores, shopping carts, order management with real-time credit-card processing, localization, and other site features
* Developers also learn to handle master pages, themes, profiles, Web parts, server-side UI controls, compilation, deployment, instrumentation, error handling and logging, data access with ADO.NET and LINQ, ASP.NET AJAX, and much more ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

What the HECK!!!
The concepts in this book are first class material for every website. However coding while following the book is impossible, unless you are Chris Love himself(No step-by-step procedures for implementing from scratch). The frustration of this would have been ok if the download-able code for this website worked but IT DOESN'T WORK. In sort this book is great for steeling good concept from and learning how to coded it else where.

Generally very pleased
Let me say up front that Chris Love has done a good job on building on what is already a well documented Web site.I liked the fact that he covered most all the elements of a social network web application.I also appreciated the many references included in each chapter for further exploration of the topic at hand.
That said, no book can supply the needs and desires of all its readers, and I am no exception.Chris stated up front who his target audience was and I believe he served them well.My one criticism is the way in which he develops his database and underlying structures to address the database.I would have preferred a chapter on the design of the data to be used.Had he done this he might have served a greater audience.The developer, who only wanted to know how to incorporate polls into his site, had to read much of the book prior to the poll chapter to understand Chris' approach to the data and the repository using entity framework.
I was very pleasantly surprised for the reference to the MVC version of the site as this is where my interests currently lie.
I can say that I recommend this book regardless of your level of expertise.If it is a bit over your head, the many references can give you much help

Problem - Design - Solution Format is a Practical Way to Learn Code
Chris Love, a principal developer for more than 300 ASP and ASP.NET websites, shows off his real world experience with this book, which I considered excellent.

His unique approach:"Problem - Design - Solution" approaches programming the way experienced developers do.Rather than offering a "Bible" approach, which is obsolete now that reference material is a click away on the web, or a "Dummies" approach, which hand holds you through the keystrokes, the "Problem - Design - Solution" approach identifies key concerns for modern developers, discusses alternative approaches, then presents the meat of his recommended solution.More than a "how-to", it gives you a thorough understanding of what you are doing, why, and, yes, how to.It is a "how-to" with perspective.

The example in the book is a "Beer House" website that Love has worked on over the years.On the downside, you can see the fact that this site has been around for awhile in his choice of languages.It is written and presented in Visual Basic.NET, rather than todays de riguer language, C#.Love confesses that he has re-written the site in C#, but at the time he went to press, it still had bugs.For this he can hardly be blamed, as the site is extensive, has been active for years, and was not in need of a complete overhaul.He does offer the C# version for download from his site, with caveats.

The book was written using web forms, rather than MVC.However, Love has another book out which approaches the project using MVC.Consistently enough, it is titled, ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Website Programming Problem - Design - Solution.I have not yet read this book.

Love gives the reader understanding of topics crucial to successful programming, such as the effective use of multiple master pages, sources for getting free ready-to-go graphics and CSS implementations, caching strategies, search engine optimization, membership profile implementation, and effective data and business logic layering.
However, it is not his presentation of these fundamentals that make the book shine.Rather, it is the relatively rare (in off-the-shelf books) treatment of the "extras" that make this book definitely worth the price for serious programmers.These topics include News and Article Management, Opinion Polls, Newsletters, Forums, Calendar of Events, Photo Gallery, and how to set up an e-Commerce Store.

In conclusion, if you are an experienced web programmer, and want solid treatments of issues critical to your success, this is the book for you.

Don't waste your money unless you've bought the previous versions of this book
I don't have the previous versions of this book which made this book WORTHLESS! Don't waste your time on this one if you don't have the series. The book is only written for people who have read the previous versions.

Be Warned - Download Code Does not Work
I am really tired of spending good money on books whose accompanying, downloadable code does not work. Why put it up at all???

If the code can't back up the ideas set out in the pages, they're not much good to me.

So, if you insist on a well-written, functioning application which you can run, and from which you can learn, this book is probably not for you. ... Read more

Product Description
ASP 3.0 Programmer's Reference relates to ASP 3.0 as included with Windows 2000. However, because ASP is now a core part of so many Web-oriented features within Windows, this book covers a far wider area than just the ASP syntax, properties, methods and events. Windows 2000 is a big operating system, in other words, it is functionally rich and bundled with numerous applications and services that enable you and your applications to do lots of different things with very little effort.For example, with Windows 2000 you can use IIS5 as your web server, you can use Active Directory to share enterprise-wide information, you can Message Queue Services to create applications that can work in a disconnected or a connected mode etc. Therefore, a properly equipped ASP programmer needs to have more than just ASP reference material close at hand to function effectively in this environment. ASP 3.0 Programmer's Reference also covers Components, Active Directory, XML, ADO, Messaging and Collaboration Services, VBScript, JScript and much more making it the complete ASP programmer's desktop companion.Amazon.com Review
The ASP 3.0 Programmer's Reference is a well-organized compilation of essential information about the latest version of Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP). It covers ASP development on the Windows 2000 platform and includes full coverage of the various new Microsoft technologies at the disposal of an ASP 3.0 developer.

In addition to the expected documentation of the ASP objects, the book provides overviews of a wide array of related objects and architectures that developers need to know about. These topics are peripheral to the actual ASP architecture, yet they are valuable for experienced ASP programmers.

At the heart of the book is the documentation of the ASP object model. Each object is introduced briefly, followed by coverage of each property and method it supports. Provided are code examples for nearly every method and property, but often only a couple of lines illustrating usage. There're no needlessly fluffy examples here.

Although its title implies a narrow focus, this book provides much more than a simple language reference. ASP developers will find it useful time and again as they explore the new features of the vast Microsoft development architecture. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• ASP intrinsic objects
• Scripting objects
• Active Server Components
• ADO
• ADOX
• DNA 2000 application architecture
• Performance testing
• Collaboration Data Objects for Windows 2000
• XML
• Data shaping
• Security

Customer Reviews (18)

Perfect
Not only is it below average in cost, it is by far the best ASP book I have ever seen. Every topic has a VBScript and JScript example.It is much more than a reference manual.This is the way EVERY computer language book should be written.

great reference if you already know basic ASP
I use this book all the time. In fact, so much that I hardly ever put it back on my bookshelf. It is a great reference for anyone who basically knows ASP but needs to occasionally look up how some part of how ASP works. I was self-taught ASP, and just learned how to do different things as I needed them. This book's biggest strength is that it shows you ASP in the big picture of the object model, which I never really grasped until I got this book.

This book is NOT a book on VBScript and is NOT an introduction to programming ASP. If you have even a little ASP experience, this book will serve as a valuable reference to looking up how to do specific tasks, but it won't help you until you at least know basically what you are looking for.

This book, and the MSDN VBScript library online, are virtually the only references to ASP that I use.

Much More Than Just an ASP Reference
Wrox is selling itself short on this one.Not only is it a great reference for ASP (lots of good examples and explanations), there are also several equally good chapters on ADO, CDO, XML, XLST, ADSI, MSMQ and Transactions.I've used it as a reference for these other topics as much or more than I've used it as an ASP reference.

Extravagant Reference
If you are intermediate to advance ASP Programmer, don't buy others book. Enough to have this book. Excellent reference.

Must have ASP reference
Let's face it, no ASP programmer can remember it all, so having a handy-dandy reference book that cuts to the chase is a must.This book does just that, and then some.I turn to it all the time(mostly because I can't stand the MS online doc).A great companion to this book is Proffesional Active Server Pages 3.0, goes into more depth and more examples.Also, Beginning ASP Databases and SQL in 10 minutes was very helpful.Using mostly these four books, I've been able to develop several full blown, database driven ASP web sites. ... Read more

Product Description
All new, for ASP.NET 2.0, this bestselling book provides experienced developers with real-world examples of the powerful new time-saving, code-saving features in this new version. Seasoned author and International .NET Association founder Bill Evjen along with Scott Hanselman help developers make a smooth transition to this new version of ASP.NET with their clear explanations of even the most dramatic changes.

Helpful examples in both VB and C# clearly show how to build ASP.NET 2.0 applications.

Some of the key chapters and topics you'll find in this book include:

• 4 chapters on server controls, including an entire chapter dedicated to the controls that are new to ASP.NET 2.0
• A chapter each on the new Master Pages and Themes/Skins features in ASP.NET 2.0
• 2 chapters on data presentation
• Data Management with ADO.NET discussing some of the radical ASP.NET 2.0 changes incorporated in ADO.NET
• Personalization, Membership, and Role Management
• A complete chapter on Portal Frameworks and the popular new Web Parts functionality of ASP.NET 2.0
• Security beyond the built in membership and role management features
• Caching including the new SQL cache invalidation feature in ASP.NET 2.0
• Proper debugging and error handling techniques for yourapplications
• Building your own server controls and HttpHandlers
• Business Objects, Mobile Development, XML Web Services
• Configuring, Administering, managing, packaging, and deploying ASP.NET 2.0 Applications

According to Brian Goldfarb, Microsoft Product Manager - Web Platform and Tools Division, this book "... is a solid one, Professional ASP.NET 2.0 and I recommend to anyone who is serious about working with VS 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0 -- Bill Evjen, Scott Hanselman, Farhan Muhammad, Devin Rader, Srinivasa Sivakumar all did a fantastic job putting together a great read with easy to understand examples and high-quality guidance. This is a must-have for every ASP.NET developers bookshelf (I already have 2 on mine :))" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

Good Introduction or Reference
As context, I programmed in classic ASP and had experience with Java and VB.NET prior to purchasing this book, but I had not really worked with ASP.NET.I found this book an easy read, very clear, and broken up nicely to that I can use it as a reference.The examples are especially helpful, as they contain just enough context for each concept, but are not so specific that I have trouble translating them to match my own needs.

Great Overview of how to develop professional ASP.NET 2.0 websites
It is difficult to find one book that will tell you everything you need to know.I do believe this book makes an honorable attempt at showing you what you need to know to develop 2.0 websites.The book topics range from talking about how to use the new features within the ide to packaging and deploying your finished products.Get up to speed on master pages, validation, themes, membership and roles security, caching, etc. Although you won't necessarily become an overnight expert by reading this book it will certainly show you what you need to get up to speed on how to develop 2.0 websites professionally.

Check newer book
I bought this book before realizing that there was probably a newer edition "Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition" by the exact same authors released in Oct 2006 with 300 more pages. I haven't seen the new one, but I suspect it is this one in a newer release. Why this title hasn't been retired is a mystery, but I can't fault Amazon because it is still listed on the Wrox site as if it is a current book.

An addendum: Even the one above now has a newer edition: Professional ASP.NET 3.5 : in C# and VB

Provides a great Reference.
Provides a great reference to almost all classes, excellent for the beginner. One suggestion would have been to create an entire application - step by step at the end of each chapter as an exercies .

ASP.Net newbies need to stay away from this book
Don't say I did not warn you, this book is not for ASP.NET newbies. I'm fairly good with VB.NET and yet I simply can't use this book to learn ASP.Net. You will not even get past the first few pages.
Another thing I don't like about this book is that it dives into technical details without give you the whole picture about what is a proper ASP.Net website.After reading this book you would not have a concept in your mind about how to build an ASP.Net. It's just bits here and bits there. ... Read more

Product Description

Pro ASP.NET 3.5 Server Controls and AJAX Components is a reference for the serious ASP.NET developer who understands the benefits of object–oriented development and wants to apply those principles to ASP.NET 3.5, ASP.NET AJAX, and server control development. This book also covers SharePoint and targets the latest version of Visual Studio (2008) and the .NET Framework (3.5). Highlights include the following:

• Covers the new features in ASP.NET 3.5 and ASP.NET AJAX technology
• Describes the ASP.NET server control architecture in Visual Studio 2008/ASP.NET 3.5 covering state management, events, rendering, cross-platform support, control life cycle, localization, and deployment.
• Demonstrates how to integrate client–side development technologies such as DHTML and JavaScript with server control technology to create powerful interactive controls

What you’ll learn

• Create a powerful suite of interactive controls using ASP.NET 3.5 and ASP.NET AJAX.
• Enrich the design–time experience when building custom server controls.
• Integrate client–side development technologies such as DHTML and JavaScript with server control technology.
• Develop SharePoint server controls.
• Learn the background on user controls as compared to server controls.
• Work with the new mobile controls in ASP.NET 3.5.

Who is this book for?

The serious ASP.NET developer who understands the benefits of object7ndash;oriented development and wants to apply those principles to ASP.NET 3.5 and server control development.

About the Apress Pro Series

Apress Pro series are practical, professional tutorials to keep you on and moving up the professional ladder.

You have gotten the job, you need to go hone your skills in these tough competitive times. The Apress Pro Series expands your skills and expertise in exactly the areas you need. Master the content of a Pro book and you will always be able to get the job done in a professional development project. Written by experts in their field, Pro Series books from Apress give you the hard–won solutions to problems you will face in your professional programming career.

Customer Reviews (3)

Mind-numbing, torturous slog
Listen, I buy technical manuals the way some women buy shoes. I love reading and learning this stuff to stay ahead of the pack. So I don't expect this to be James Patterson or Dean Koontz. Alright? But this has GOT to be one of the most painful, and worst "Pro" books I have ever had the misfortune of purchasing.

First off, either the implied level of the book'S intended audience is wrong ("Pro"), or the writers have no clue as to the type of development real "Intermediate to Advanced" .Net developers do in the real world. I'm up to chapter 4 and haven't tried to run one line of code. The first problem is that all the code examples thus far, are bogged down and cluttered with Master Page code with does nothing to advance the concepts, but merely act as a cute and stupid advertisement for the book you're reading. Secondly, they take a concept that in and of itself is complex, and then, because of the examples they use, they dumb it down to a level that is so insipid, the experienced developer's eyes are glazed over, and he finds himself just skimming over the code, which normally is my favorite part of these types of books.

When you start getting to the meat of basic concepts, they introduce a "custom" textbox example. Ok, I thought, "They'll use this to show some basic concepts, and then move onto more advanced examples of custom controls." Wrong! They use this stupid custom textbox control throughout the first four chapters. When a developer has used complex data-binding templating with hand-coded AJAX, can you imagine how mind-numbing it is to look at four chapters of code for a f'kin textbox? Let alone actually type in, or go through the hassle of downloading and installing projects for this kind of dreck.

Another problem I had was that they'd spend a lot of time and pages explaining a concept, and then after they're finished, they'd blithely say in effect "Here's an easier or better way to do it." How about telling me upfront there's an easier way of doing something, and let me decide if I want to bother learning to do it the harder way.

There are other issues as well, but I think my opinion is clear.

In a nutshell, my main problem with the book is that there are some important concepts to be learned in the first several chapters (probably in later chapters as well), but they are presented using the most boring, simplistic and unimaginative examples possible. As such, it was torture to read, and even harder to pay attention to what they were trying to impart, because my mind constantly sought escape through any excuse to be distracted from what I was reading. A floating piece of lint, or an errant cobweb was good for an hour or two of respite from this literary version of waterboarding.

In fact, the only reason I've spent the last hour or so composing this review, is because, you guessed it; I needed a break from this f'kin book!

The Data Binding chapter is opaque
So-so.

Chapters 1-6 are alright, hence the 3 stars, but the important chapter 7 about data-binding controls is quite opaque to someone with no prior knowledge. This chapter took the wind out of my sails, and the rest of the book, which i only skimmed through, offered nothing to correct the impression.

Consistently, the full texts of both the .aspx and the .aspx.cs files are listed, even when the code-behind is essentially empty!

The overall reading experience is dull and frustrating.

David Naas
I thought the book was written for Simple Jack and not developers, I was looking for some complex samples but fell short to simple hello world samples.I t it it ma ma makes my brrbain bubu bucket water.In fact if I use this book I can be the dummist mother F*())) in the room. ... Read more

Product Description

With the latest incarnations of ASP.NET 3.5 and SQL Server 2008, programming dynamic data–driven web sites with Microsoft technologies has become easier and much more efficient than ever before. Fewer mouse clicks and fewer lines of code can now enable more powerful features and the tools you need—Visual Web Developer and SQL Server 2008 Express Edition—are free. In Beginning ASP.NET E-Commerce in C#: From Novice to Professional, you’ll learn how to best use the free development tools offered by Microsoft to build an online product catalog. You will gain an intimate understanding of every piece of code you write. This understanding will enable you to build your own powerful and flexible web sites efficiently and rapidly with ASP.NET 3.5.

• Build a complete site, including a shopping cart, checkout, product searching, product recommendations, control panel, customer accounts, order processing, and much, much more.
• Explore new challenges and theoretical concepts, which are carefully analyzed and explained throughout the book, with each feature you add to the web site.
• Learn to handle payments by integrating PayPal and DataCash into your site.

Customer Reviews (19)

E-Commerce Guide
Found this book to be a good guide for developing E-Commerce website for the beginner.Although it covers quite a bit of material including things like credit card transactions and receiving payment using PayPal it certainly not going to make the reader a professional in developing such sites.If you liked a step by step approach this may be the book for you.It does lack the in-depth discussions on the various topics.In all fairness, there are complete books written on the various topics.

What this book does give you is a chance to develop a complete e-commerce website.Giving a good overall understanding of developing such a site.It could be used as a starting point for a more in-depth study in the reader really wants to become proficient at developing such sites.

Do not get this book if you want to learn C# or ASP.net.If you want to see how to set up an e-commerce site using C# and an ASP.net then this is a good book for.I would recommend that you know C# and be familiar with ASP.net before reading this book.

Good concept, but...
The book provides a worthwhile case study of building an E-Commerce website from scratch using ASP.NET.HOWEVER, there are a few major cons that mar the whole

1. As other reviewers have mentioned, there are TONS of grammar- and punctuation- related errors that make this thing a nightmare to read, particularly in the early chapters.

2. While the code is functional in most cases, the author opted to use his own database access system rather than implementing LINQ, which would have been much faster.Isn't this book supposed to cover "ASP.NET 3.5"?

Otherwise, a useful case study with good examples albeit a bit too much verbiage in many areas.

Great Subject Contentbut...
Way too many errors in the book and source code.

This book has excellent subject content.However, there are many errors and omissions in this book.One fundamental example would be the fact that the sample products in the book have different attributes, yet the shopping cart will only allow you to add one instance of the product id.Obviously this doesn't work out if you need to add the same product in, for example, 2 different sizes.There is also no support for these attributes in the admin system.After emailing the author several times trying to get updated code, I gave up and worked on fixing the issues myself.I had to add quite a lot of functionality to both the database and the code to make the cart work the way the book indicated that it should.

I am not a ASP.NET (C#) guru by any means but had enough knowledge to be able to overcome the problems in this book's source code.However, I'm sure a true beginner (Billy Bob who has never done any programming before and needs an E-Commerce site) would have thrown in the towel.The source code for this book was not well tested and you need to have some prior .NET and SQL Server experience to be able to overcome these errors and omissions.To say that this book is for complete beginners is a misrepresentation.As the other reviewers pointed out, you will not get any help from the authors (even though they give their contact info).We all know mistakes happen in books, but part of writing a book is publishing errata to fix these mistakes.The authors of this book seem to have washed their hands of this responsibility to the people who purchased this book.

This is a real shame, because this would have been an excellent book.The editing of the book and testing of the source code just needed to be a lot better for it to be suitable for the "beginners" it targets.

A very good book for beginners/starters
I am a Database SME for the last 15 years and have not done any serious programming in any traditional language such as C, C++, and .Net for the last 8 years. Got a fascination to get into programming again starting with C# as the IT programming landscape is getting closer between DBAs and developers. I was introduced to this book by one of our senior IT engineers. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and more importantly going step by step programming in C#. I could not have asked for better. The book is guided by many worked out small scale projects which is useful and becomes interesting for beginners like me. The PayPal project was a good experience to get into details and work on a full fledged project.
At the end of each section, the "How it works" section is really useful and gives a glimpse of the internals.
I would definitely recommend this book for any beginners, especially database professionals embarking on learning a widely used language besides their comfort zone of "T-SQL" and hence a 5 star.

A good idea waste by could not careless attitude
when i saw the title i was so happy.
When i read the review here i decided
to buy the book.
But when i am reading it i have to make some precisions
Many people here are confusing about two things.

1--The idea behind a book

2--the content of the book and the support of the book

Many here acclamed the book ,rating it 5 stars.
According to me :If it is about the idea behind the book then they are right
E commerce is so famous.There is no need to make any additional advertisement for it.
But about the content and the management of the book;i would say :
It is a good idea spoiled by could not careless attitude.
How can we explain so many error in code?
what was the technical reviewer doing? He neither appreciate nor comments about the book
I found it suspicious
Why is APRESS so silent about users requests? Up to know no correction have been released at their website
That s curious as many people have wrote to them!!!
Why does the authors consider themselves as the last king of scotland?
Why? why and why?
It s a pity to see a so beautiful idea spoiled like that.
But what i am claiming here is simple
If anybody have succeed to fix all the bugs can he share his working solution with others?
I am begging some help as i am landed in trouble in building CategoriesList web control user
I am waiting for generous help,as i believe it can came from here
neither from Apress nor from the authors
i am waiting ... Read more

Product Description
Get hands-on, expert guidance for developing more secure Web applications with ASP.NET 2.0 with this in-depth reference. The nature of the Web and its underlying communication protocols make Web applications harder to secure and, therefore, primary targets for hacking attacks and other kinds of compromises. This book guides you through the possible vulnerabilities of Web-based applications and shows you how to help mitigate them in your own applications. Start with the ingredients of security-enhanced Web applications from the ground up, beginning with Web server set-up, and learn how to harden that machine for a potentially hostile environment such as the Internet. Then move on to in-depth treatment of crucial topics such as how to use ASP.NET to perform proper input validation; choosing from the numerous options for authenticating and authorizing users; how to store application-related and user-related sensitive data in a secure fashion; how to incorporate detection; and error logging measures. This guide covers how to integrate ASP.NET into the Microsoft Windows® security infrastructure and how to effectively use impersonation, delegation, and Active Directory® directory service. You will also learn about new Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 features, such as constrained delegation and protocol transition. Coverage extends to one of the most underutilized features of ASP.NET—running in partial trust. The book concludes with guidance on how to conduct audits and penetration tests and how to integrate them in the development process. Written by a leading authority and trainer, this reference comes complete with best practices based on real-world experience and extensive code samples in C#. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Security , Security, Security!!!
Book review - "Developing More Secure Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 Applications, by Dominic Baier.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7356-2331-6

Hi all, my name is Gilbert and I have been a professional programmer / programmer analyst for about 22 years now.
I was interested in reading this book because of its topic, which is how to develop more secure asp.net 2.0 web applications.
In my experience, security has traditionally been
* More complex than most programming topics to understand and effectively implement in a real life production environment.

* Easily "pushed aside" in favor of other topics such as user interface work, performance tuning your application, fixing bugs, adding new features etc.

In reality, security should be the MOST important area to deal with in your application infrastructure, because without a good security model your data can be hacked into or your website content could be replaced with malicious messages, political messages or just about anything.
Let's face it though, security is a very dry topic and it's hard to stay focused sometimes on all the various security issues that need to be dealt with in an asp.net 2.0 web application.
The only advice I can give is like any complex topic, you need to force yourself to understand the topics on hand so you can make good security infrastructure decisions when building your asp.net 2.0 web applications.
So, I started to read the book cover to cover.
The first chapter was a good overall perspective on what web application security is and some solid security principles to live by.
Chapter 2 gave an overview of asp.net 2.0, especially in the area of http handlers.The author likes the use of custom http modules which basically can intercept and add additional functionality to http requests.This area is ideal (according to the author) for building security infrastructure.
Chapter 3 enforces the idea of input validation how malicious users can try to exploit website input (such as on a webform).Developers must properly validate input validation to minimize problems that can occur with hacking techniques such as cross-site scripting
Chapter 4 deals with one of my favorite security related topics and that is ENCRYPTION.Encryption is fascinating to me because it allows open architectures such as SOAP (web services) and WCF (using basicHTTPBINDINGS) to build a type of authentication system using encryptedtickets and SSL (secure socket layer).For example, you may build a client application that "talks" to a SOA (service oriented architecture enabled service) hosted on your internet site.You will need to authenticate your client application to your SOA architecture.Most likely, you will end up using encryption and SSL to pass username / password credentials from your client application to your SOA architecture.
Now, even if you were only a standard asp.net website with no client applications but just browser sessions connecting to your website, you will still want to use SSL and you will still most likely store your passwords in your database using encryption, it just makes sense to do so. There is some good information about the Windows Data Protection API and also how asp.net has some built in api's to protect sensitive configuration data (as in web.config files)
Chapters 5and 6 were easily the most interesting chapters for me, because it deals with how to authenticate and authorize users of your website.This is indeed a common problem most web applicationsthat have customer accounts, memberships etc. have to solve.
Authentication in the asp.net 2.0 world would most likely involve some type of logon page (userid and password).
Authorization in the asp.net 2.0 world would most likely involve some type of role management which dictates what a user of your web application can do.For example, the admin role would be allowed to update product prices, the customer role would only be able to view your products and buy your products, the bronze member would only be able to use certain services in your website, while the gold member could use advanced services in your website. The topic of authorization goes hand in hand with authentication.
The author gives some basics of the types of authentication available in the .net framework world.
In addition, he explores concepts of delegation, impersonation and security contexts and x.509 certificates.
Chapter 6 expands upon chapter 5 and explores the built-in "security providers of asp.net 2.0".Basically asp.net 2.0 has built in "membership" providers and "role providers" that were designed with the knowledge that most asp.net 2.0 web applications require authorization and authentication. So, the idea of the asp.net membership and role providers was to provide a working infrastructure that could easily be implemented in a website and is mostly configurable either programatically or with the use of configuration settings (integrated into the ubiquitous web.config file present in all asp.net web applications).In the past (as in classic asp web pages or cgi applications), developers would have to basically write their own authentication and authorization systems, some of these were very crude and not particularly effective in terms of security.Credit must be given to the developers at Microsoft for building a robust "out of the box" way to provide authentication and authorization to asp.net web applications.In addition, I like the fact that Microsoft actually has a "provider architecture" in which custom code could "extend" the membership and role providers to build a custom model exactly suited to your environment. By customizing your own security provider, you can make use of a lot of already provided functionality and just add the extra pieces you really need, while still making it compatible with the security provider API's provided in the microsoft .net framework.
Chapter 7 now goes on the "auditing side" of security, this basically is saying that security staff have to be able to audit the types of activity related to security. For example, someone could be trying to hack into the website but while hacking in generating a lot of http 401 unauthorized errors.By identifying a trend in these errors, security admins could understand and proactively take action against hackers. One technique which I already knew about is by capturing the Application_Error or Page_Error event you can write a simple smtp email that emails admins when any unhandled exceptions occur.An unhandled exception is basically a runtime error without a try catch block or a runtime error that has been rethrown.So, any weird issues with your website would generate a runtime error that can automatically get "caught" by your programming code and send an email to certain admins of the website.This is very powerful, because again you can be proactive when dealing with website security issues or other issues.

The rest of the book deals with
* CAS security(basically controlling at a more granular level what types of code your asp.net service account (usually network service) can run on the web server).
* "Hardening" your server to prevent security attacks
* Unit testing applications for security applications and various tools to help you look for security vulnerabilities

The appendix also has an interesting take on building a custom protected configuration provider, which allows one to store encryption keys in an external location away from the web server.I like this because I can think of some scenarios where I would like to store my encryption keys somewhere else, like on a mainframe at my work so that its not too tied to one particular web server.I plan on looking at this code in more detail and possibly using it at my work.

CONCLUSION:
I like this book because it give lots of detail on a very complex topic.It forces you to think from a security perspective, which is something all developers need from time to time.I still do not consider myself by any stretch of the imagination to be a security expert, in fact I will probably have to reread some of the chapters periodically to give myself a refresh of the material and the motivation to be more security conscious.This book is a valuable addition to any developers bookshelf.

Does the job
I needed to get Kerberos authentication working between a web service on one IIS server, a windows service on another server, and SQL server running on a third server and was running into the Windows NT authentication "double hop" problem.I struggled for days reading various web sources trying to make heads or tails of how to do it with no success until I found it here using the "Look Inside" feature here on Amazon.This tells you how to do it, point by point, in surprisingly clear writing.

I immediately bought the book and have been grinding my way through it ever since.It's about security so it's not that fun (who wouldn't rather be learning about Ajax, SilverLight, or anything else that will wow the people at work) but it's surprisingly palatable for developers like me (and most developers I've ever met) who think of security issues as the equivalent of cod liver oil.

Excellent book for learning the security related aspects of ASP.NET 2.0
I am an ASP.NET newbie and found this book very helpful in understanding authentication, authorization, role based security, input validation etc. I am a desktop developer and found the web development model difficult to understand initially but this book cleared up my mind in the security related parts. The book is written in a very clear and concise manner and uses diagrams to explain concepts which which I found very helpful. There are practical advices sprinkled all over the book along with the "why" of it.
In short, this is a very well written book which improved my asp.net knowledge and skills considerably. Highly recommended.

Highly Recommended
I really wish I could give this book 6 stars, it has been an indespensable resource for learning techniques to develop more secure applications. With so many dangers lurking out there it is increasingly important to not only be able to develop secure applications but to understand the .net security mechanisms as well. This book will leave no questions unanswered, if for no other reason purchase this book for chapter 8 on partial trust, I have not come across any resource that covered this topic so thoroughly. It's treatment of sandboxing and code partitioning alone make the book worth every penny paid. If your looking to continually improve the quality of your code and sites don't leave this book off your list.

Complete Guide to ASP.NET 2.0 Security
This is a book by a MS Developer Security MVP for any and all developers writing ASP.NET 2.0 applications. Not only does it cover all the usual suspects and provides practical prescriptive guidance on how to deal with them with examples; it also deals with the tough "hot topics" like partial trust. The book is both complete in breadth and depth and really does provide a single good reference book on ASP.NET security.

I can not recomend it with more guster.

Confession I helped write the tools chapter which is why I know (and yes I am a fellow MS Developer Security MVP)! ... Read more

Product Description
Access 2007 Programming by Example with VBA, XML, and ASP shows non-programmers how Access databases can be created, managed, and customized with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) a powerful programming language built into Access. Hundreds of hands-on examples and projects throughout the book show users how to take charge of their Access databases with programming.Learn how to: Write and debug your programming code with the Visual Basic Editor. Access and manipulate databases with Data Access Objects (DAO) and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO). Use the Data Definition Language (DDL) to enforce data integrity and manage database security. Modify the behavior of forms, reports, and controls by writing event procedures. Publish dynamic Access data to the web using Active Server Pages (ASP) and Extensible Markup Language (XML). Work with the new features for tables, forms, reports, macros, and templates that are available in the Access 2007 user interface. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Covers obscure topics well but code has errors
In particular, the chapter on Arrays.Most books skip this topic entirely or will have a page or 2.This has an entire chapter on it, with many "complete" examples, and the reason I bought the book. This may, in fact, be the definitive reference for arrays. But there is a remarkable error in that chapter, which describes how, for 2D arrays, the first index is for rows, the second for columns, such as Array(rowindex,columnindex).But I discovered, after a few hours of confusion, that it's the other way around!The problem is evident from the continuous "out of range" errors I was getting. I had to print.debug almost every cell in my array to confirm this. Also, the SELECT statement in the example that uses the GetRows Method to fill a 2D array (ironically not in the chapter on Arrays) should include the ORDER BY clause, so the data in the array will be in the same order as in the table from which it's importing. I was printing the table, for reference, but the array was, not obviously, sorted in a different order!For sure, the code in these books often doesn't work, but I'm sure it's hard to proof all the code, since typos in code just aren't as obvious as with regular prose.

Not exactly the whole nine yards
I'll keep this brief: It's a pretty good book, but doesn't cover everything.For example, OpenArgs is not mentioned at all.

Not what you think!!!!!
I tried this book because I thought it would be a good book which would teach me, a complete novice, how to program in Access with VBA. Not only were the fist few pages of this book complete garbage, half of the exercises in the book don't make sense or have code that works. I stood there frustrated for hours trying to understand why the code in the book doesn't work the same way when I tried the exercises. I don't know how people are giving this book 5 out of 5 stars, but they are completely wrong. DO NOT USE THIS BOOK FOR VBA!!!!! I haven't tried this whole book out yet, but I do know that it's not all that it's cracked out to be.

So Good I bought 2
This is not a book for beginners but if you want to learn the in's and out's of Access VBA this is the book for you!I bought 1 for work and one for home.I use the examples everyday.

This is the way to learn to program Access
I have been trying to learn how to program Access for a few years and this is the only book that I am confident will help me master programming Access 2007.I purchased the Access 2003 version last year and then the 2007 Access a couple months ago.To my surprise, Ms. Korol had added more than 200 pages to ensure that folks understand how to use Access 2007's new features, including the Multi-value Data Type, Attachment Data Type, Append Only Memo Field, Rich Text Memo Field, and PDF/XPS files. Although I have not studied it yet, there's an entire chapter on customizing the Ribbon.

The very best aspect of the book is that it contains code samples for just about everything that you'll need to build a robust Access application.Most code samples are given as both DAO and ADO.

You'll still need other books in your Access library but you'll probably want two copies ofAccess 2007 Programming by Example -- one for home and one for the office.This book will save you lots of time on user community boards whether you are a beginner or an advanced developer. And although the first section says no previous programming experience is necessary, I would still recommend a beginning Access VBA course or programming class. ... Read more

Product Description

The most up-to-date and comprehensive introductory ASP.NET book you'll find on any shelf, Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in VB 2005 guides you through Microsoft's latest technology for building dynamic websites. You'll learn to build dynamic web pages quickly, with only basic prior knowledge of Visual Basic. Included is thorough coverage of ASP.NET, to guide you from your first steps to advanced techniques like querying databases from within a web page and performance-tuning your site.

Customer Reviews (10)

Phenomenal book. Covers MANY topics. Great reference book for ASP.NET
Of all of the books I have purchased for ASP.NET (VB) so far, this book is the best. It covers most if not all topics needed for the intermediate ASP.NET developer. Good writing style with clear ideas and examples. The book is organized well and it is easy to find the particular topic you are looking for.
I think it may be the best ASP.NET book for the price and would recommend to anybody who needs a reference manual for their web development in ASP.NET.

What a teacher!
Another excellent book. The writter not only presents the subeject very well but his was way of presenting the information and samples are well choreographed. No time wasted, to the point. Hope that he writes other books.

Answer to a review
Sylvia B. Gonzalez, ASP.NET is really not a beginning subject. I have been in the business for more than 40 years, it is not an easy business. That is the reason they pay us well.

Just keep reading, find a book that is best for the way you learn.

Outstanding Reference
I teach a web application development course for experienced MIS undergraduate students at a huge southern university.This is the second edition of MadDonald'sin VB I have used and will continue to use it as long as he keeps publishing them.My students will have had two programming courses in which they use VB and are very experienced with database design, SQL, and stored procedures.

The book provides superb coverage of the development and execution environment, the fundamentals of coding and contols, data connectivity, security, and performance issues.Unlike most other references (at least for VB 2003) MacDonald focuses exclusively on the code-behind pages and doesn't try to mix up the VB code in the HTML pages.

The book contains a superb brief overview of web services--definitely enough for my students to create and field their own.

The explanations and examples are well written and easy to follow for this audience.

NOT HELPFUL
This book was not helpful it does not give any exercises it jumps from one topic to another. The book is suppose to be for beginners not advanced. ... Read more

Product Description
Getting started building a Web site is simple enough-the hardware is cheap, the software is easy to install, and the market of potential visitors is huge. If it's a company Intranet site, you can even run it over the corporate network; with no need for expensive cabling and ISP connections.

The problems come as your site starts to grow and mature. Web sites are supposed to be enticing and exciting (so as to attract new visitors), and contain ever-changing content (to make those visitors come back again). How do you maintain and keep control of a fast-growing and ever-changing site, while still keeping it informative, accurate, and error-free? The answer is automation; and the combination of Windows 2000 Server, Internet Information Server, a server-based data source, and Active Server Pages, makes it possible to design your site so that it's easy to manage and maintain. They even make it easier to add regular new content, and keep the site looking fresh.

Do you know how many visitors your site gets, and who they are? How can you tell which topics your visitors are most interested in, and which areas of your site get the most traffic-and even what times of day are busiest? How do you implement secure access to certain areas, so that you can charge for premium content or prevent access to administration pages? This book tackles all these topics-under the three general headings of controlling, maintaining and monitoring your Web site.

You won't see pages of setup information for Windows 2000 (though we will look at installing SQL Server), or a tutorial for ASP. What you will see is down-to-earth discussion of the issues that webmasters have to face daily, and real code solutions. If you are building or administering a Windows 2000-based Web site, this book should be on your shelf.Amazon.com Review
One of the attractions Web development offers to programmers is the endless possibility to learn new tricks, exploit the latest technology, and continually build more efficient sites. In Alex Homer's Professional ASP Web Techniques, programmer extraordinaire Alex Homer shares some of his favorite Active Server Pages (ASP) tips and illustrates how to make the most of the technology cards you're dealt.

This book focuses on ASP 3 programming on the Windows 2000 platform, and Homer makes it clear in the introduction that the reader should already be familiar with ASP and general Web development. He wastes no time getting down to business, showing how to dish up dynamic sites, and opening your mind to the concept of a single-page site that relies on database records to produce an unlimited number of pages of content. The book doesn't follow a definite "bottom up" track. Instead, it flows more like a conversation with the author--complete with a "Plug and Play" chapter comprising juicy tidbits that don't fit neatly in the other chapters.

Homer's examples of implementing cross-browser compatible framesets and sophisticated line and pie graphs of user and site statistics are especially intriguing and useful. All of the techniques are presented with a balanced combination of screen shots, code snippets, and commentary.

The author wraps up this fun book with a "Blue Sky" chapter, in which he shares some of his knowledge of upcoming technologies such as ASP+, XHTML, BizTalk, COM+, and more. This is a fitting conclusion to a very engaging guide to ASP. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Dynamic page design, browser compatibility, access control, remote administration, error handling, broken link management, user tracking and statistics charting, e- mail integration, XML, certificates, and ASP components. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The topping of an ASP cake.
Some people, so it seems, expected Alex Homer to break ground rules with his knowledge of ASP. He is a wonderful writer and a terrific programmer, but he's also just another joe. This book will not teach you to programbetter, it'll teach to think better about designing certain scenario whereASP is needed. It'll show you new and innovative ways to solveproblems.

It doesn't mean you need to be an expert to understand thisbook, anyone can understand it. The experienced ones will know what to doto make those ideas work, the newbies will know where to look forinformation to make these things work. This book is for everybody. It'svery useful when you come to a point when you have the technical knowledge,but don't know what to do with it.

A Must if you have worked in ASP for 2-3 months
This is not the book to start with but an excellent resource I would always like to keep with me once I am aware of ASP and want to go further into the details which not everyone knows.

ASP Tricks OK
I have spent a good amount of time working with ASP and other forms of VBscripting. This book has taught a thing or two about ASP, but I believe that it would have been much more useful for me as I was learning to usethe technology. I believe this book has little to reveal to experts butit's something very useful to have if you're a casual programmer orteacher.

Homer deals with a great number of common ASP problems, errorsand how to make scrips more efficient and reliable. ... Read more

Product Description
XML, the Extensible Markup Language, is a platform-independent language for describing data. The XML and related specifications, as well as the Document Object Model, have all been developed with language independence in mind. This was done to allow any programmer to use these powerful protocols and object models in their own language of choice, thus providing a huge development potential for the XML community and offering a myriad of opportunities to developers working with established technologies.

ASP has long been leading technology for server-side, dynamic web applications. And XML, as the newest markup language and a standard format for the universal sharing of data, is undoubtedly set to become an intrinsic part of all major development both on the Web, and in the wider business community. The next generation of web sites will inevitably combine these technologies as e-commerce matures and developers look for more efficient ways to integrate Internet presence with business systems. Amazon.com Review
Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) and the Extensible Markup Language (XML) are two of the hottest Web technologies, but each, because it is a complex topic in its own right, usually is documented individually. Professional ASP XML ties the two together in an important way, illustrating how to utilize them both to produce next-generation Web applications.

This product of several Wrox authors shows how and where XML fits in with ASP development, and whets the reader's appetite for creative solutions to typical data-handling problems. Because the focus of the book is a step beyond the XML specification itself, the basics of XML are covered up front in a quick and practical discussion. The authors do a great job of explaining the Document Object Model, as well as the DTD-versus-schema controversy. Then it's on to the fun stuff: a look at how to build XSL style sheets dynamically from a database, bind XML data locally with data islands, and construct a component that encapsulates reusable XML file operations.

The best way to grasp the power of XML, however, is to see it in action. Fortunately, the authors devote a large portion of the book to case studies that use XML in various ways: to drive an online survey system, generate programmer documentation for DLLs, represent a shopping cart, and serve as the glue behind a workflow application. If you're developing for the Web, sooner or later you will find XML either useful or necessary. This book should be required reading for any serious ASP developer. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• XML syntax
• DTDs and schemas
• XSL and CSS
• ASP/XML integration,
• ADO/XML integration
• Client-side XML data binding
• XML procedure libraries
• Schema repositories
• SOAP
• Data transferring
• Data presentation

Customer Reviews (31)

Notice the Dates on the Reviews
I got this book from a friend and after reading a few chapters I checked the Amazon reviews to see if "it was just me" or if this book was horrible. I was surprised to see it had even 3 1/2 starts. Then I read the reviews carefully...

Just days after the book came out, there was a rush of excellent reviews, most of which where only a few sentence long and lacked any detail. Then reality set in. People who really read it, universally hated it. -- And gave detailed examples why.

Now, I'm not going to say the original reviews where astroturf... but read them in order and watch the dates. Then consider you have a book with 14 authors all of whom use the internet and know the power of good Amazon reviews...

Things just don't add up.

Best for Programmers to implement XML in ASP
Excellent! for ones who are pro to ASP and need to intergrate XML with ASP! A must buy!

Best for Programmers to implement XML in ASP
This is definitely a good book for developers having good knowledge of ASP and XML and how to integrate XML in ASP. I just loved this book. People who say they don't like it, they have not read the book I am sure. Its sure worth the money!

Bad examples, choppy, dated and not for beginners
I'm a big fan of the WROX publications (for ASP in particular), but this book was a disappointment.The writing was choppy - as you might expect from a book with 14 guys on the cover.The examples were cryptic and raise more questions than they answer.

The author(s) seem to me to be attempting to impress us (and each other) with their knowledge of the subject rather than really trying to write a digestible explanation of ways to utilize XML in an ASP environment.

Not worth it (at all)
This book was a real dissapointment.

I LOVE wrox ASP 3.0 Ref and ADO 2.6 Ref. Maybe Wrox should have taken that approach with this book -- instead of trying to act like this book can in any way teach anything about XML.

The examples in this book are horrid, they aren't in depth enough, and more importantly, don't even correspond well with each other.

Too many of the chapters jump into the middle of a subject, then try to work back to the beginning and then forward to the end.

Trust me, I've read the first 5-7 chapters of this book and finally got so sick of all the ambiguity that I went out to the MS Site and learned more in 30 minutes there than I ever could have with this book.

Some of the case studies in the back are nice, and this book would have made a great reference (had they gone that route), but it is a horrible book to learn how to integrate XML with ASP.

Save your money. ... Read more

Product Description
O'Reilly has once again updated its bestselling tutorial on ASP.NET, the world's leading web development tool from Microsoft.In Programming ASP.NET, Third Edition, authors Jesse Liberty and Dan Hurwitz give you the lowdown on the technology's latest version, ASP.NET 2.0, as well as Visual Studio 2005.

Among the most significant improvements to ASP.NET 2.0 are new server controls and services that make you dramatically more productive.In fact, when compared to its predecessor, ASP.NET 2.0 reduces the amount of code you have to write by about 75%.Creating interactive web applications has never been easier-but that still doesn't mean it's hassle-free!The difficulty in ASP.NET 2.0 is that it's so complete and flexible that there are many pieces that must be woven together to build a robust, scalable, and efficient application.

Fortunately, Programming ASP.NET, Third Edition is on the case, dispensing all the information you need to be effective with this dynamic tool.For starters, the book features a comprehensive tutorial on Web Forms, the user interface that gives web applications their look and feel.It then offers detailed explanations of all new controls, including web server controls, HTML controls, and custom controls.Used properly, these controls are able to take care of nearly all the foundation work-security, data access, layout, etc.-that you would normally have to write yourself.Free of these burdensome tasks, you can instead focus on your specific application.

Other new material found in this updated edition even shows you how to create ASP.NET 2.0 pages for mobile devices.With Programming ASP.NET, Third Edition at your side, there's virtually no end to the programming possibilities.

Topics covered: Introduction to the .NET platform and ASP.NET; basic programs in HTML; ASP and ASP.NET compared; events in ASP.NET (application, session, page, and control events); HTML and ASP controls compared; basic ASP controls APIs (including in-depth coverage of calendar support); code behind forms; using the Visual Studio .NET IDE; tracing, debugging, and error handling; validation controls in ASP.NET (including built-in and custom validators, plus regular expression support); basic data-binding techniques; list and DataGrid controls; ADO.NET tutorial (basic APIs and programming techniques); calling stored procedures; updating database records; Repeater and DataList controls used with ADO.NET; custom ASP.NET controls (including derived, composite, and full custom controls); overview of Web services (including SOAP, WSDL, and other standards); creating and consuming a sample Web service for a stock ticker; ASP.NET caching techniques explained (including fragment and object caching); security options in ASP.NET for authentication, authorization, and impersonation; configuration and deployment options in ASP.NET (including XCOPY deployment); and an appendix with a quick tutorial on database design. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (84)

Good books with detail information
I am new to ASP.NET and this book is good start with all the details required by a starter.

NO SOURCE CODE SUPPORT
Good Content, 3rd Edition lacks Example Source Code on his website (Only 2nd Edition and new ASP.NET 3.5 is available).

If you want to learn ASP.NET 2.0 using this book seriously you probably need to do lots of typing.

Illustrations and pictures are not that straightforward, you need to imagine a lot before getting your hands dirty in VS 2005.

Great Reference and Learning Title
Just as any good large technical book should do, this gives a pretty good reference of all the basic controls and how to perform basic operations.This is also it's only fault, as it spends a lot of time on the simple controls, and not enough time on the more complex concepts.

It's good for reference though, as it does contain a good amount of content to do most anything in ASP.This title is good for the beginner ASP as it covers simple to complex tasks fairly thoroughly.After you've absorbed most of this book, you might find yourself looking for more, and I've mostly found Google useful to add-in the pieces missing from this book.Overall I recommend this for any ASP guru who needs a refresher every now and then.

Subpar Liberty book
I am a big fan of Jesse Liberty books and rate him as one of the best and more experienced tech writers around, but this book is definitely not up to his excellent standard. To be more precise, the book starts out very well, with and introduction to the basic control of ASP.NET illustrated by many clear examples, and the only complaint I have about the first part of the book is that I would have loved to see the two chapters that he devote to webapp structure and configuration right at the start of the book. I think it would have given a clear picture of what one is doing with all those pages and controls and why things are the way they are. The second part of the book is where I was expecting to find more complete and advanced examples on how to build and configure a "real - life " web application, but here is where the book fails miserably. The chapters on ADO can be defined as confusing at best, and the remaining chapters are either a sequence of instructions fitter more to a "build a website visually for dummies" title, or missing crucial information. I have been also very annoyed by the organization of the example code. Every, and I say every example is in the format of a single website, and to make things worse these websites are not organized by chapter number but just by name.
It really looks like the kind of book a smart and experienced tech author could write after studying the documentation throughly but having no real experience with the subject in practice. I think I understand why.. even I find myself more interested in the foundations of a technology on language structure and on general CS subjects than in the structure of the Nth API or Framwork, but still I don't go about writing books on them!
So, a somewhat decent book, especially considering the low general quality standard of ASP books, but nothing to be enthusiastic about.

Clearing up misconceptions
This book is a C# book.The reviews here, along with Amazon's own review, are referring to one of the previous editions where VB.NET code samples were included.

When deciding to buy this book, or not, be wary of the reviews that were posted before the publication date.I can see that this situation has already caused others some grief. ... Read more

Product Description
Flex is a very powerful and versatile technology for creating web application front-ends. But what every good web application needs is a robust data source, be it XML, or a database. Flex is very adaptable in terms of connecting to data sources, and that is the main focus of this book.In Foundation Flex for Developers, Sas and Koen assume that you've got the basics of Flexdown already, and explores in detail how to create professional data-centric Flex 2 and Flex 3 applications. In the first half of the book, she starts off with a brief exploration of Flex and ActionScript 3.0, before looking at application essentials in detail—creating custom components, user and web browser interactions, binding, formatting, and validating data, debugging, and more.In the second half of the book, the focus is on connecting Flex to data sources, and covers XML, LiveCycle Data Services, PHP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion in detail, via a series of step-by-step case studies.

• Covers Flex application basics
• Covers connecting Flex 2 and Flex 3 to a variety of Data Sources
• Includes several complete case studies.

What youll learn

• How to create custom components
• How to handle user and web browser interactions
• How to debug Flex 2 applications
• How to bind, format, and validate data
• How to load and write external content
• The essentials of XML, and working with it in Flex 2, including E4X
• The essentials of Flex Data Services
• How to build up data-driven Flex 2 applications with PHP, ASP.NET, and ColdFusion backends

Who is this book for?

Customer Reviews (5)

Not about Data-driven application
I didn't enjoy this book for two reasons.
Firstly, if you are at all familiar with Flex, it was very wordy and basic. This meant that you had to spend a lot of time scanning over stuff to make sure it wasn't covering anything that you didn't already know.
Secondly, it really didn't explore the XML/AMF options or validation or data integrity or performance or data dictionary techniques. I was left with the feeling that the authors had never been involved in a large data oriented software development project.
So on the hole, rather a waste of time for me. I suspect that if you come from a Flash design background and want to move across to systems development, this might be a useful resource.

Good resource if you're migrating from Flash to Flex
This book a great way to get you working in Flex fast... if you already have a good understanding of AS3 from a Flash background. If you're not familiar with AS3 than there are some sticking points that slow you down. But if you're goal is to transition form working in Flash to working in Flex, then this book is an excellent place to start.

Great Coverage of Flex with Decent Case Studies
This book was an in depth coverage of the Flex technology, from creating custom components to how to build data driven applications. There is a great chapter on integrating with the web browser using javascript or an Ajax-Flex bridge.

It goes very in depth in covering XML in Flex builder with detailed information on understanding E4X expressions. Which I will refer back to many times in my development process for these great techniques. And great best practice information for MXML.

I would have liked more coverage of how to integrate Flex with the Flash IDE type workflow. Other than creating components. There's a good but brief overview of AS3.

The case studies for connecting to data-driven applications are pretty short but useful. The PHP chapter walks though a Flex blog management system with a tabbed interface. It walks through how to set this up in with PHP code and how to connect to a MySQL database. With all the sample files available for download on the Friends of Ed website.

The book is very long (over 500 pages) and most useful for me as a desk reference when needing assistance while working with particular items in Flex. It tries to cover so much in terms of data driven technologies that the individual case studies feel a bit shallow.

Overall, I recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn or improve their knowledge of Flex and best practices using AS3 in Flex.

Not a good book
This is not a good book to learn from unless you learn best by thinking very deeply about what the teacher says and correcting errors.
I am up to Page 27 and have worked through the first example with FlexBuilder3. The book is riddled with problems, including typographical errors, imprecise explanations, and even a conceptual error.

Example page 21:click="txtResult.text= = String(cboUnit.selectedItem.data ..."
While reading this I wasted about two minutes trying to puzzle out why there would be two equals signs in a row before deciding that this is probably a typo.By working the example on my computer I confirmed this.

Example page 23: The book refers to both a NumberValidator and NumericValidator.
An engaged student will have to wonder, are there two different kinds of Validator, or is the teacher lazy?No one wants a lazy teacher but that appears to be the case here.

Example page 23: "The CDATA declaration prevents Flex Builder from parsing the contents of the..."
I believe this is an imprecision that can seriously throw someone off who is trying to learn this stuff.In fact the CDATA declaration prevents the *compiler* from parsing the contents of the...Flex Builder only gets involved because it happens to invoke the compiler, but the compiler is a separate agent here, and the critical one that should have been named.

Example page 26:"This event object will also be dispatched when the user clicks the Convert button because the validator uses the click TriggerEvent."
I don't mean to be an impertinent student, but I would suggest that this is just plain wrong and it reveals a conceptual misunderstanding on the author's part.In fact, in the code the author presents, the validator is invoked by an explicit call to a validate() method; the correct validation is done because the NumberValidator object has its source property set to the TextInput object.The TriggerEvent is not necessary, as I verified by commenting out this part of the author's code.

To be generous, this book is indeed teaching me Flex, but by a very peculiar pedagogical approach.Maybe indeed one learns better by being forced to think very hard about the validity of every single statement and sentence. What worries me is if this author launches off on the wrong track with regard to coding style and program architecture. Since I now know that I cannot trust this author, I'm not sure how much longer I'll stick with the book.

My recommendation: find a better book.

Nothing special
To be honest, i was really excited when i saw that title "data driven applications with php, asp.net, coldfusion and lcds". what do you expect from a 600 page book that contains less than 90 pages on the topic it portrays. i have always liked the author but she disappointed me this time. its a good book yes...but if you are looking into getting deep into data driven flex applications using server side technologies like php, coldfusion etc...look else where. ... Read more

Product Description
There is no faster or better way to learn ASP.NET web programming using Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET than to use "Murach’s ASP.NET web programming with VB.NET." To get you off to a fast start, the first 5 chapters show you how to use Microsoft Visual Studio to design, code, and test multi-page web applications that use view state, session state, cookies, database data, and code-behind files.

From there, you learn even faster as you master the core professional skills like HTML, server controls, validation controls, state management, and user controls. Then, you learn how to use the best ADO.NET features for working with a database in a web application including: connection pooling, data commands, parameterized queries, caching, data views, command builders, and the Repeater, DataList, and DataGrid controls.

Last, you learn how to apply the finishing touches to a web application: security, web services, custom server controls, reports generated by Crystal Reports, email, and deployment. "No other book teaches so much, so fast, or so thoroughly." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

Very good book - with one complaint
Overall this book is very good.Highly recommended.My one complaint is that this book uses some vb.net examples that are not covered in Murach's vb.net book.But overall, very good and very worthwhile.

Outstanding Tutorial and Reference
Before purchasing this book, you should know that the author expects you to have been exposed to the skills taught in Murach's Beginning Visual Basic.Net.

Having said that, this book is written in an easy-to-follow format that led me step-by-step toward the skills needed to become the most knowledgeable ASP.Net developer on my team.It hits every subject I've been exposed to at work, making it an excellent reference as well.This book also helped me to strengthen my object-oriented development knowledge.

One of the biggest advantages of this book over others is that it taught me how to develop using Microsoft Visual Studio ("VS").Unfortunately, learning ASP.Net using Notepad instead of VS is like learning to drive using a go-cart instead of a car.Almost all employers expect their .Net developers to know their way around VS.With this book, you're covered.

Highly recommend
I recently got hold of a copy of this book (full title: "Murach's ASP.Net Web Programming with VB.Net") and it is terrific. In particular, it includes the best walkthrough and problem solver of using IIS I've yet seen - and I know from the Forums that this very early step causes a lot of people a heap of problems. (Me included at one time! )

The book uses a technique of having the main narrative on the left hand page, backed up by important summaries and/or diagrams on the right hand page. This can be quite useful for reinforcing those particularly tricky areas and is handy for flipping back to when you need to recheck something. Overall, I think it works great.

Good Info, but not consistent in building sample application
I bought this book in hopes that the author would clearly explain building the halloween shop sample application from the ground up, but after chapter 1, the author totally loses you as far as next steps are concerned.
The first chapter has actual "excercises" which get you started in building the sample application. After that, most chapters don't contain these exercises, therefore you have to build the rest of the application based on the screen shots/code snippet's in the chapter.

SUPERB
Simply said: One of the best books I have ever bought!

I needed to dive into ASP.NET pretty fast because I had a project running to its deadline. I was a programmer who knew Visual Basic and Delphi pretty well. I did know the theory of ASP.NET but had no practical experience. This book teached me in a record time how to build and get my first web application up and running.

The best starter's book you can imagine. The second book I bought on the subject was ASP.NET Unleashed, which is a marvellous book if you have some ASP.NET experience.

For a beginner Murach's book is simply a dream, and although I have written a couple of web applications now, I still use it as a quick reference. WORTH EVERY PENNY IN GOLD. ... Read more

Product Description
ASP.NET MVC (Model View Framework) allows you to use ready-to-use MVC code so you can develop Web applications faster. This book?s cut-to-the-chase approach gets you up to speed on the new ASP.NET MVC without getting bogging you down in learning or re-learning ASP.NET itself. You?ll receive straightforward instruction on concepts, backed by real-world case studies and examples that offer practical solutions. Topics include test-driven development and unit testing, the principles of the MVC pattern, how to implement it, how to move from traditional ASP.NET Webforms to ASP.NET MVC, and much more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Truly a beginner book oriented more towards WebForms Programmer
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about ASP.NET MVC.

This book is more oriented towards the ASP.NET WebForms programmer who are trying to make the transition to

ASP.NET MVC way of programming. Having said that anyone - even those who have not done ASP.NET WebForms

programming - can understand the concept and can get going. The book explains things gradually step by step so

that any body can understand it. The book also contains "Try it out" sessions where the sources are given

first and then explained later by highlighted code. The highlighted code reinforce the new concepts we just

got introduced to. The book also provides exercises to do at the end of each chapter and the solutions are

provided in Appendix B in case you are struck with your solution. In short this book covers everything a MVC

beginner programmer needs to know.

Sometimes I wish the authors are precise and not very eloborate - but I guess the authors wanted to make sure

that the beginner gets the concepts right and so were very eloborate.

Book everyone using ASP.NET MVC should have on their desk
Although I've been a Web Developer for several years, I changed my career path since few years and all my knowledge about Web Programming was not-so-fresh.
Beginning ASP.NET MVC drove me through the new way of making THE WEB with the MVC pattern in the .NET World.

Simone and Keyvan start with Chapters regarding all the basic building blocks of ASP.NET MVC (from what a Model/ a View / a Controller are, to ActionFilters, ActionControllers and so on) with very clever examples.

Every chapter starts with the assumption the reader has no knowledge about such topic and, at the end, makes you aware of what that piece is and how to use it in next chapters.

I've been ready in less than 2 weeks with my first real-world (simple) Application...and I neither finished the book at that time!

The book also covers technologies an "ASP.NET MVC Starter" should know about to let a Web Application works: Ajax, Security (Authentication - Authorization).
Final Chapters get the reader a basic but good idea on how to extend ASP.NET MVC and how to use it in the real world following a couple of
Case Studies.

All chapters are pushing the reader thru the Test-Driven Development methodology: the way of programming ASP.NET MVC has been though on.
Very practical but won't leave you without theoretical topics in mind.

It is my definitive MVC Reference even now I feel more "comfortable" with this new Technology: it covers all I need for a good Web Application.

Personal Experience and gain in knowledge: EXCELLENT; one of the best technical book I ever read.

A great book on ASP.NET MVC
This book is the better book of ASP.NET MVC that I've red. It's perfect for the beginner and not only. In fact in this book you can find great sections for advanced user like Inversion Of Control in MVC.
This is a really pragmatic book: a lot of code and a lot of example about all ASP.NET MVC features like AJAX, Testing, and Extensibility.
If you are an ASP.NET developer and you want to learn ASP.NET MVC this is the perfect book.
Well done guys.
Enjoy it

Good Introductory book on asp.net mvc
This book is the perfect introduction to asp.net MVC. It covers all you need to start writing an asp.net mvc application, and it gives you a lot of suggestion on how to structure your site.

The books cover all basic aspects, with a good coverage on the foundation conceptslike: Routing, Separation from controller view and model, testing etc. Even if it covers the basic of asp.net mvc, I suggest it even to people that already know mvc, but never read a book on the subject, you can find useful suggestion here.

alk.

A very well done book for everybody
Summary and structure of the book.
The book has 19 chapters plus a couple of appendixes. Each chapter covers a specific argument. At the end of each chapter there is always a section for the exercises and a summary section. The first thing you will like about this book is the huge amount of sample code!

At the end of the book there is the appendix B that contains all the solutions related to each exercise, so you won't get lost.

The appendix A has a lot of useful links that you can follow, resources, links, books and more.

Finally there is the index that is done for a "dev" reader. It's not a normal index but an index divided by alphabetic order that includes also all those components and "code" that you will find in the book. So you will find, for example, the page that talks about "NHibernate".

Case studies.
What I really liked about this book is the 2 case studies that you will find at the end. Simone has created these 2 case studies that will reflect 2 real solutions, one is a blog and the second one is ... a surprise. I am not going to tell you everything because you must buy it. [;)]

This is something really well done as you will apply all the knowledge you got through the book into 2 real solutions!

Chapters.
Of course I am not going to describe each chapter, but this is the list of chapters so you can understand why this book is so well done, IMHO:

MVC pattern
WebForm VS MVC
Getting started
The model
The controller
The view
Routing
Unite test concepts
Testing ASP.NET MVC
Components
Action filters
AJAX
Deployment
Leveraging ASP.NET WebForm futures
Authentication and authorization
Extend ASP.NET MVC
Migrating from ASP.NET
Case studies
Resources
Exercises solutions
Final Considerations.
I am a NET developer, most of time I develop Silverlight/WPF or WinForm applications. For fun I did a couple of ASP.NET MVC applications in the bank where I was working before, but my knowledge about ASP.NET MVC was relative to those projects.

Now that I got this book, I was able to read all the aspect of MVC pattern applied to ASP.NET and I feel comfortable to build a real application with this framework.

I did a real ASP.NET MVC application for the Company where I am working now, and I was able to do everything is less than 1 week, including the use of JQuery and AJAX.

I am really satisfied of this book and I hope that you will buy it as it is a very nice and well written book that will drive you inside this pretty cool framework. ... Read more

Product Description

• Combining both VB.Net and C# coverage in one book, this guide focuses on using ASP.NET 2.0 for solving business dynamic Web site challenges in a logical progression, from connecting to a database to displaying information to changing data
• Covers the fundamentals of connecting Web pages to databases, techniques for creating data objects and events, and ways to handle data errors
• Features tricks and traps for displaying data in grids, lists, and trees
• Goes beyond the usual basic techniques to discuss the best practices and pitfalls that can occur in real-world scenarios with SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Access, and the new SQL Server Express Edition

Customer Reviews (2)

Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 and Databases (Wrox Beginning Guides)
If you are absolute beginner then this is the book for you. Everything is primarily done with the wizards. If you are just beyond the beginner stage then I would suggest getting one of the WROX's ASP.NET 1.1 database books and this one. I found that most of the material in this book I could have easily found on the web. I wished they had combined the ASP.NET 1.1 books with this book which would have made it an all in one solution book.

Complete and Well Written
ASP.NET 2.0 is Microsoft's latest version of the software to connect between the web and a database. The previous version of ASP.NET has been greatly simplified to produce the same results with much less code required.

This book presumes some experience with ASP and some experience with databases. Several different databases are covered in the book including Microsoft Access, SQL Server and SQL Server Express. The author recommends that you not use Access (and I agree). He points out that Access was not designed to scale to large applications. I'll point out that the SQL used in Access is quite different than that used in either version SQL Server. Switching from Access to SQL Server at a later time is a pain. (It took me several days to find out about all the differences and then a couple of weeks to change over a web site of about a hundred pages.)

This book is as complete an introduction to ASP.NET 2.0 as you're going to get. It's well written and complete. But don't get to thinking that you're going to have a full fledged dynamic web site up and running tomorrow. This is a programming language like any other. You'll have to learn how it works. ... Read more

Product Description
This comprehensive guide combines conceptual and architectural details with practical, how-to information and real-world code samples to show how to create custom, reusable, professional-quality server controls with rich design-time functionality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

Not easy, But there is no alternative.
I have searched books about asp.net custom controls. I can find several books. But no other one is better than this book. This book handles quite hard concept. And the sample code is quite long to follow. But I think there is no other option. You have to be patient. If you want to learn how to make asp.net custom control. You must buy this book. It is still valuable in asp.net 3.5 age

Perfect! Just Perfect! For all .NET versions
Been studying this book for months, really an arduous journey. I can say those who gave this book less than 5 star just didnt get it at all.

Reading this book is like watching the author dissecting the whole asp.net before you step by step!

Yes, you might realize this book is bloody good after reading the 1st Chap, but you might also find at the same time that this book is very hard to follow. Yes, it is a tough book. Because this book is .net professional-oriented and also because of .net framework's intimidating scale and convoluted hierachical structure itself.

This book will definitely bring your understanding of asp.net to the highest possible level(The impossible level is to aquire source code of core asp.net implementation from Microsoft.LoL)

Once you've truely digested this book (not swallow), you will find how trivial it is to build an asp.net page!You can now build powerful controls by your own and they would be used by others! (Copyrights! Aha!)

However, some need to be familiar with more or less the whole map of CFL to get a quick understanding of this book with less pain and reading this book itself is a procedure of learning CFL within the whole ./web namespace! Its really challenging!

Why I said this book is for all .net versions. because new controls or components provided by .net 2.0 or above just abstract some codes in this books to a higher level(packaging them into new classes and that's it). In other words, this books contains some arguably genuine source code from Microsoft! Precious!! Its my Precious! LoL

Happy studying! Thx Nikhil, brilliant work!

A Very Complete Reference
If you are a proficient ASP developer and are familiar with advanced C# progrmming topics like events and delegates, this book gives you a thorough knowledge about server controls. After looking into many ASP.NET books, this is the first book which doesn't waste the reader's time to describe non-related topics.

Just a joy to read, but this is not a "for dummies" book.
This is the de-facto "advanced" book on authoring ASP.NET server controls and components. I read a couple other "for dummies" books to get up to speed, but I still had quite a few unanswered, nagging questions. Well, this is the book to take your development of ASP.NET controls and components to the next level by removing the veil for some of the magic going on behind the scenes.

One of the worst technical books I've encountered
It may be a nice reference but in no way it is a good explanation of how to get things done! The authors wrote the book without thinking of what readers might want to see.
This is technical writing not a tutorial. I've read great tech books (like .NET Framework by Jeff Richter) where one doesn't have to read a paragraph twice. This book is not one of those.
It is also very difficult to trace how things are related to each other and where they come from. ... Read more

Product Description

Pro ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming tackles real business problems. This comprehensive reference book provides insights into practices that help reduce maintenance costs, decrease development time, and manage user perception. If you have some familiarity with ASP.NET, VB .NET, and Visual Studio, then this book will show you how to harness the new features of ASP.NET to build websites that tackle real business needs.

Customer Reviews (8)

Pro Asp.net 2.0 Website Programming
This book has provided me with endless useful tips on how to write and organize professional Asp.net 2.0 code in Visual Basic 2005.Lots of little nuggets not found in other asp.net 2.0 books. To me this has been indispensable. FYI This won't be the only book you need if you are new to asp.net but it makes an excellent addition and will fill a gap in your libarary if you already have a beginner or intermediate book on the subject. Most Professional and specialized books on asp.net 2.0 are written in C# that's great if your are a C# or Java developer but for professionals like me who write VB.Net don't have time to learn or reinterpret another language before project deadlines. Not all professional applications are written in C# you know!Kudas on a job well done

Authors Comments
After reading through some of the reviews there seems to be some confusion about the book which I assume only comes if you are buying the item online.The tagline for the title is "Learn indispensable tactics for building solid, secure, and maintainable ASP.NET 2.0 applications using Visual Basic 2005."It's fairly difficult to read the tagline on the book unless you magnify the image, so know that the code is written in VB.NET.But if you program in C# you should have no problem picking up the concepts and following the code discussions in the book.

Inside the book you will find discussions and code regarding various aspects of web application programming that come up in just about every project.It is not a book specifically for "beginners" because I assume you have some familiarity with development in ASP.NET using VB.NET.If you are a beginner then I recommend picking up my book in conjunction with a true "beginners" book because my book covers more concrete, real world examples of how to do things whereas a beginner's book normally contains examples geared towards training.My examples focus on building reusable and or repeatable processes that save you time, energy, and money.In other words, things that make sense in the business world and are not just academic.

Here's a breakdown of the chapters in the book and what you will find:

Chapter 1 - Configuration Strategy.Contains an overview of the new configuration tools in ASP.NET 2.0, how to build strongly-typed configuration classes, how to work with custom configuration sections, and how to store configuration settings in a database.

Chapter 2 - Exception Management.Contains an overview of exception management concepts and syntax, how to use global error handling in your application, building custom exceptions, handling nested exceptions, and discusses how to effectively capture and log errors for analysis.

Chapter 3 - Master Pages, Themes, and Control Skins.Discusses some of the new features of ASP.NET including master pages, dynamically changing master pages in code, nested master pages, and how to work with themes and control skins.

Chapter 4 - Developing Reusable Components.Contains information about the new global tag registration and how to develop components using the new ControlState feature.It then delves into an example that demonstrates how to build a custom server control for communicating status and error information to your users in a consistent fashion.

Chapter 5 - User Management Tools and Login Controls for Forms Authentication.Discusses the ins and outs of Forms authentication, how to work with the membership and role objects in code, administering members and roles in the Web Site Administration Tool, and a detailed overview of the new ASP.NET 2.0 login controls.

Chapter 6 - Managing Profiles.Discusses how to configure and use the new Profile object in ASP.NET 2.0 including how ASP.NET handles anonymous profiles, authenticated profiles, and how to migrate an anonymous profile to an authenticated profile.This chapter also demonstrates how you can use the Profile object to target advertisements based on the user profile, and even how to run a shopping cart from the Profile.

Chapter 7 - Building Portals Using the Web Parts Framework.This is a huge chapter that discusses everything you need to know to get up to speed with Web Parts and the demo application that accompanies the text is, in my opinion, pretty awesome.

Chapter 8 - Effective Search Tools and Techniques.Demonstrates how to build a searching framework that makes building search forms quick and easy.When you finish with this chapter, you will have a very powerful query tool for building searches and a simple way to build out the actual search forms themselves.It even goes as far as to demonstrate how to provide users with a simple form for simple search, and an advanced form for more complex queries.

Chapter 9 - Building a Reusable Reporting Framework.Discusses how to make building reports with paging and sorting easier and more efficient.

Chapter 10 - Web Based Wizards.Covers the new Wizard control in ASP.NET 2.0.The demo application for this chapter shows you how to make an "Add User" wizard that incorporates phonetic searching to help avoid duplicate data entry.

Chapter 11 - Uploading Files.Shows you the ins and outs of file uploads including uploading single files, uploading multiple files, and how to store those files to the file system or directly into a database.It also discusses how to retrieve uploaded files from the database and serve them back out to users.

Chapter 12 - Security and Encryption.Outlines the security architecture behind IIS and ASP.NET so you have a full understanding of the security model that runs behind your code.There are also detailed examples showing you how to secure information in your application using one and two way encryption.It does not contain an overview of Code Access Security, however.

Chapter 13 - HTTP Handlers.Contains a detailed overview of the HTTP Pipeline and HTTP Handlers.There are demonstrates of how to process virtual files with URL rewriting, how to build an image generator that automatically resizes images on the fly, and even demonstrates how to build a simple content management system.

So, hopefully that will clear up any confusion about what you're going to be getting when you buy this book.

Thanks,
Damon Armstrong

You've gotto get this book!
With all due respect to the reviewer who panned the book because, in his opinion, VB is "not the choice of professionals", may I suggest that if the front cover of the book states that it is written using VB, you would do well to expect that it is indeed written in VB.The subtitle specifies "Learn indispensable tactics for building solid, secure, and maintainable ASP.Net 2.0 web applictions using Visual Basic 2005", and Damon accomplishes this goal admirably.

As one who has been programming for decades, but am new to the .Net world, I'm very grateful to the author for the splendid job he has done getting the reader up to speed on the essentials of developing a ready-for-prime-time web application.I've spent hundreds of dollars on ASP.Net 2.0 VB books, and you would be hard pressed to find any other one that so clearly lays out how to take full advantage of the built-in 2.0 technology for things like building shopping carts with a minimum of code and integrating them with the supported user profile structure.I work for a small company where I am the entire IT department and the work load is staggering.If you're like me and you need to come up to speed quickly using best practices for 2.0 VB, then you've got to get this book.

One more thing I have to say - I was totally amazed by the professionalism of the author.I wrote him with an inquiry, and he obviously spent a chunk of time researching to come up with a same-day gracious response (AND rewrote some of the code in the book, zipped it up, and sent it at 2AM!).Which means that not only is he a first-rate author, but a nice guy as well.

Nothing professional about this book
This book is, by no means, Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Programming. First, it is all VB.NET (Not the choice of professionals). Ok, the book does not cover the typical topics you find in a beginner's asp.net book, but the topics it covers are merely new features in asp.net 2.0 discussed in a very superficial way.

The only chapter I found to be worth while reading is the one on Web Parts. Some level of detail there, but do not expect much. This book should be re-named to, "New Features in ASP.NET 2.0 - A beginners approach to programming".

If you are looking for a professional programming book, this is not a great buy. If you are looking to get your way around asp.net 2.0 without all the typical beginner's stuff, then this book is for you (if you do not mind VB.NET).

2 stars off for the bad title and 1 star off for VB.Net

Here's The Rub
This book is all VB.Net 2005.There's no C# code in the book or available for download.This really limits the audience and you should know this before you purchase this book.To be fair to the author I should note that my rating reflects this fact and no further reading of the material since I intend to return it right away. ... Read more

Product Description
Experienced developers who are looking to create reliably secure sites with ASP.NET 2.0 will find that Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management covers a broad range of security features including developing in partial trust, forms authentication, and securing configuration. The book offers detailed information on every major area of ASP.NET security you’ll encounter when developing Web applications.

You’ll see how ASP.NET 2.0 version contains many new built-in security functions compared to ASP.NET 1.x such as Membership and Role Manager, and you’ll learn how you can extend or modify various features. The book begins with two chapters that walk you through the processing ASP.NET 2.0 performs during a web request and the security processing for each request, followed by a detailed explanation of ASP.NET Trust Levels.

With this understanding of security in place, you can then begin working through the following chapters on configuring system security, forms authentication, and integrating ASP.NET security with classic ASP including integrating Membership and Role Manager with classic ASP. The chapter on session state looks at the limitations of cookieless session identifiers, methods for heading off session denial of service attacks, and how session state is affected by trust level. After the chapter explaining the provider model architecture in ASP.NET 2.0 and how it is useful for writing custom security providers you go to the MembershipProvider class and configuring the two default providers in the Membership feature, SqlMembershipProvider and ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider. You'll see how to use RoleManager to make it easy to associate users with roles and perform checks declaratively and in code and wrap up working with three providers for RoleProvider – WindowsTokenRoleProvider, SqlRoleProvider, and AuthorizationStoreRoleProvider (to work with Authorization Manager or AzMan).

This book is also available as part of the 5-book ASP.NET 2.0 Wrox Box (ISBN: 0-470-11757-5). This 5-book set includes:

• Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition (ISBN: 0-470-04178-1)
• ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution (ISBN: 0764584642 )
• Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Security, Membership, and Role Management (ISBN: 0764596985)
• Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Server Control and Component Development (ISBN: 0471793507)
• ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks and Tips (ISBN: 0764597663)
• CD-ROM with more than 1000 pages of bonus chapters from 15 other .NET 2.0 and SQL Server(TM) 2005 Wrox books
• DVD with 180-day trial version of Microsoft(r) Visual Studio(r) 2005 Professional Edition

Customer Reviews (10)

explain lots of background info before explaining the provider model features
I highly recommend this book simply to have as a reference working with the security features in ASP.NET 2.0 I agree with other reviewers that alot of the beginning of the book explains teh underlying security details which to many might just want to consider a black box. It is a good reference for the provider models Roles, Membership, but you might want other books for the simpler tutorial to setup login, membership and authentication etc in your ASP.NET 2.0 site

Easy and smooth read
This book is an easy read and takes you from Alpha to Omega of ASP.NET in smooth flow. This is also very thorough with illustrations.

Thorough, excellent writing
I bought this book because I needed the information for a project that I am currently engaged in.The information contained within was immediately relevant in shaping the solution design.It gave me the how and the why to architect a solid, yet flexible solution.

This text is not a how-to for a beginner.It is also not light reading.It is a dense book; lots of information crammed into it.You have to bring your experience to this book for the full weight of the teaching to come to bear.I highly recommend it to application architects and development team leads.

Not useful
This book is like those instruction you will want to give to your team members if you are the leader, but having to keep reading that for close to 600 pages!
Yes, the target is clearly not defined and if you want to get a work done by reading this book, please forget it.
If you implemented membership and roles, and seeking some extra advice may be you might find it useful. It does not really explain the various systems, illustrating each well enough.
I opened Forms Authetication, hoping to learn how to implement it in my project, just to read more than a page of people creating 50 years cookie. Is 2 or 3 lines of sentenses not enough to let someone know about 50 years cookie?

It's about how things work under the covers
I bought this book for help with over-riding the membership providers and possible the profile providers.What I got was a full on introduction to how things really work under the covers.Didn't really help me with my original intention, but certainly improved my understanding of security in ASP.Net 2.0. ... Read more

Product Description

This book is for anyone who wants to learn about using .NET for web interface design. Beginner or hobbyist .NET developers can certainly get a good foundation of .NET web interface design by going through this book from cover to cover. However, more seasoned .NET professionals, especially if they tend to steer away from the GUI of their projects, can also pick up a thing or two by focusing on certain chapters that appeal to them. This book is meant to take a reader from the beginning of a project to the completion of the interface design. Along the way, concepts are illustrated to show how the different pieces play together. So, anyone who really wants to understand the concepts presented in this book will be able to do so by reading the entire thing. However, this book should also serve as a good reference after you have read it or, in some cases, in place of reading it.

All of the early chapters provide useful information and examples for any web developer. Many of the concepts presented after Chapter 4 are more specifically targeted at .NET developers. In the later chapters, the target audience is .NET developers or, at least, people who want to become .NET developers. In those chapters, you should probably have at least a basic understanding of the .NET Framework and some experience with Visual Studio 2005 (or possibly Visual Studio 2003). If you are completely new to .NET, you may find it useful to pick up a beginning ASP.NET 2.0 book before delving too deeply into those chapters. If you want to learn about .NET 2.0 web interface design, you are the intended audience.

It should be noted that all of the .NET code samples in this book are in C#. However, this shouldn’t limit other developers, such as VB.NET developers, from understanding the concepts or being able to replicate the code in their own projects. The actual managed code examples are pretty limited and, when they are used, they should be fairly easy to port over to VB.NET.

This book covers the concepts serious developers need to begin designing cool and consistent web layouts. The early chapters focus on general web design standards that you need to grasp in order to move into the later chapters. Specifically, these concepts are:

• Basic web design considerations (colors, fonts, images, accessibility, and so on) (Chapter 2)

• Photoshop basics to get you started making your own graphics and color schemes (Chapter 3)

• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and their use in web design layout (Chapter 4)

When you finish these chapters, you will have the basic shell for the project that you will continue to develop throughout the book. You will have the header graphic, color scheme, and CSS layout that you will begin to incorporate .NET-specific concepts to in the later chapters. This includes:

• How to make .NET controls render accessible CSS code rather than their default: tables (Chapter 5)

• Using the built-in controls of .NET to create easily maintainable and consistent site navigation (and how to make them render CSS divs instead of tables) (Chapter 6)

• Creating your web site template with Master Pages (Chapter 7)

• Creating themes and skins to style your .NET controls (Chapter 8)

• Applying themes to your projects through various approaches, including base classing (Chapter 9)

The final “regular” chapter ends with you building an entirely new mobile device theme using all of the concepts learned in the previous chapters. In Chapter 10, you will start with modifying your graphic to better fit the resolution of your mobile devices. You will also learn how to modify your stylesheets and apply them programmatically to be used only for this theme. You will have a new Master Page and an entirely new theme. You will also see one way of switching themes based on your criteria (in this example, your criterion will be whether your client browser is a mobile device).

Beyond these chapters, you will get a “forward look” at some of the new technologies coming down the pipeline that affect these some of the material you learned in the preceding chapters. In Appendix A, you will get a glimpse at the upcoming release for Visual Studio, codenamed “Orcas.” This will almost exclusively focus on the new CSS features because they are the most relevant to the other chapters of the book, and there are so many new features regarding CSS management in this release that they warrant their own chapter (nested Master Pages are also included, but CSS takes up most of the appendix).

Finally, with Appendix B, the Visual Studio Codename “Orcas” discussion is extended to include Microsoft Silverlight. You will learn how to create drawing object, incorporate images, animate your objects, and affect the rendered output through your managed code.

If you read this book from cover to cover, you should end up with a really solid understanding of the current technologies for .NET developers to create consistent and accessible web interfaces, as well as a feeling of excitement for the new stuff that should be coming soon to a computer near you.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

learn to use CSS, Themes and Master Pages in your ASP.NET 2.0 Webforms
this book puts together a good explanation of using CSS, Themes and Master Pages together to design modern ASP.NET 2.0 website pages with WebForms Controls.
It saves alot of time finding the information and good examples / best practices on the internet. After reading this you'll be able to create better CSS based designs in your aspx pages

Developer Focussed.
I am a hardcore .net developer. But, site design has been kind of my downside. Came across this book and had a glance at the book contents. It looked impressive and bought it. Actually, after reading it, I am glad I bought it. It covers everything that you need to consider when building a website. Not just "How" to do it, but also the "Why" of doing it. It also covers the nitty questions which you have been thinking about how they do it in the site. Explains in a simple and direct way. Jacob Sanford has done a real good job in his first book. If you are a .Net developer and would like to sharpen your design skills, this is the book to buy. It's worth it.

Only book on the topic does a nice job
Let me get the bad out of the way first, so I can tell you why I think you should still consider buying this book.

1. Spends a bit of time on superfluous issues. For some of you, this might be a godsend, however, as development is often more than just coding these days.

2. Some fairly long code samples that fluff up the book without adding a huge amount. One illustration of CSS versus tables would be sufficient.

3. Not a lot of highlighting in code to point you to the points that have changed.

4. Some of the explanations are thin for those without a lot of experience in this particular topic.

Now that I got that out of the way, let's look at why this book should be a welcome addition to your shelf.

Reason 1 is it is the only book that focuses on this particular topic. Reason 2 is this topic is extremely important, although more often overlooked.

If you have an ugly, unusable personal site, it is not a big deal, as your mom will still visit. But, with business, it can be devastating. And, now, with accessibility lawsuits, it can be costly, as well.

Let's start from the beginning (a very good place to start, I hear).

The first few chapters are a bit of overview and express the importance of things like CSS, accessibility and good web design. None of these will make you an expert, but they will likely push those of you still in table design over to the dark side (CSS). The arguments for accessibility, including information about recent legal actions against websites, may be the kicker. Chapter 3 also focuses on using PhotoShop for designing a nice looking site. Some of the techniques will not apply to other image manipulation tools, but the basic ideas are useful for all.

Chapters 4 and 5 focus on CSS. In particular, chapter 4 talks about setting up a site that appears "tabled" in CSS and chapter 5 gives you a great overview, and some practical advise, about the CSS Friendly ASP.NET controls.

Chapter 6 talks about navigation and gives great practial advise on the web.sitemap file. This chapter was a godsend to me, as it finally gave me an epiphany on why roles were not working. This was actually a portion that fit #4 on my bad list, but sometimes seeing an example is enough to clue you in. :-)

Chapter 7 is focused on master pages. One of the biggest aids here will be the bits on design. The pages on passing information from master to child is also very useful.

Chapters 8 and 9 focus on themes. If you have a site that can be "skinned" different ways (by user or "site"), these chapters may well be worth the price of admission.

Finally, chapter 10. This is one of the best chapters in the book, as it brings all of what you have learned together. It shows how to use a single code base to work with a wide variety of browser targets, including mobile devices. And, unlike many books, it does it in a very practical, real world way.

There are also bonus appendices on Orcas (Visual Studio 2008) and Silverlight.

Summary: Overall, this is an average book. As the only book on the topic, however, it gets a slightly higher nod. As this is a topic I have tried to drill into people's heads (i.e., building a site is as much about user experience as making things work), I would like to see as many people pick up this book as possible. Someone might come out with a better one at some time, but learning this material is a wise thing. ... Read more

Product Description
* Readers will learn how to build dynamic personalized Web sites from the ground up using Microsoft ASP.NET 1.1
* ASP.NET supports twenty-five languages, and C# is the second most popular, trailing only VB .NET
* The expert author team makes no assumptions about readers' previous programming experience, and they've decreased coverage of object-oriented programming to make the book even more accessible for absolute beginners
* All code has been rechecked and verified to work correctly with ASP.NET version 1.1
* Anyone with even a slight knowledge of HTML and Web page creation can pick up this book and soon be creating dynamic sites with ASP.NET ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Decent book for the complete beginner.
This is a pretty decent book if you have no programming experience what-so-ever. If you do have programming experience (namely C#) then you will find a huge portion of this book completely useless.

This book starts off by teaching you how ASP.NET works. This is good information for any programmer to know, but after you learn that then it's all basics. You learn about data types, variables, properties, loops, events... pretty much all the most fundamental aspects of programming. This is not bad if you are new to programming, but like I said, if you know C# but don't know much about ASP.NET then be prepared to skip almost 1/3 of this book. This book also briefs you on OOP, but you will not feel confident in OOP practices - it's more like you learn the definition of OOP.

This book teaches you how to program using Web Matrix, which is a free web development/pseudo web-server tool. I see a lot of reviewers complaining about this, but I actually believe it's a good tool to start with. I believe it's good, especially for beginners because you aren't required to have IIS installed in order to start learning ASP.NET programming. This is good for new developer that don't have access to higher-end operating systems like Windows XP Professional. If you have Windows XP Home then you can use Web Matrix. I don't believe that it would be hard for a developer to move from Web Matrix to Visual Studio, especially since the IDEs are so similar. A big downside to Web Matrix is that it doesn't really utilize the whole code-behind idea (and no intelli-sense).

In conclusion I recommend this book to new developers that have no C# experience. If you are an experienced developer then I would only pick this book up used for less then $10.00 because you already know a lot of the information this book presents.

Disappointed
Unfortunately this book did nothing for me. I was looking for a beginners guide for ASP.Net that would get me started programming with C# while learning the features of .NET. I chose Wrox because I found some of their other books very useful.

This book wastes alot of time on the Web Matrix which is both pretty useless for the beginner and the professional alike. If you are trying to be an ASP.Net professional, Visual Studio would be your choice. And if you are beginner you want to learn how to program the examples in C# rather than using the automated features of Web Matrix.

Basically I am returning the book and will have to find another company to help me in my web development learning process.

Great Book - you will learn to create real world websites!
I needed to learn ASP.NET for a new project.I know HTML, VB6 and SQL but had no previous experience with ASP or other internet stuff.I was initially going to buy a similar book from O'Reilly but I like this one way much better even though it has some mistakes, typpos and pictures in the wrong places here and there.Wrox will probably fix it all in a second edition.In the mean time they could fire the people who did the revision.Things that other readers mentioned as a CON, I find a PRO in this book.Example: using WebMatrix instead of Visual Studio.WebMatrix is not as powerfull as VS but it is free and at the same time provides you with an Internet Server, so you can get started right away and don't need to spend extra money with VS.The book teaches you what to download and install and takes you step by step in building a complete website with most of the features you will find around an average+ web site.Also gives some brushes about XML, OOP, CSS and Databases among other stuff.It's a long book 800 pages, but with about 40 to 60 a day, with little more than 2 weeks you will be done with it.I couldn't believe I would go through all of it and I am already in page 500!!It doesn't have any cute pictures or icons or little jokes in it, but it will teach you step by step without telling you to click OK in every dialog.GREAT BOOK!Good luck to you!

Professionals Be Warned...
The examples in this book are built with a free product called WebMatrix.Most (if not all) professionals must use Visual Studio, which is the preferred development environment for all .NET languages.Learning ASP.Net programming without using Visual Studio will only take you half way to your goal.

WebMatrix is also used as the Web Server, so you won't get IIS exposure.If you are a professional, or want to be one, look for a book that uses Visual Studio and IIS.

An Excellent Book - But There Are Caveats
I have always been happy with the Wrox series, and this one is no exception.

The book starts out explaining about .net and getting you up and running with some "Hello World!" stuff and basic controls on a webpage. It then goes into various datatypes and describes some of the fun data structures built into .net and some basic stuff on how to use them. It then explains some basic c# functionality, and goes on to explain the object-oriented nature of it. After this, databases are discussed and how to connect to them. Much of the remainder of the book is spent developing a faux application which explores some of the more complex controls, some useful objects, asp.net security and how to use assemblies.

I found the style of presentation to be very clear. A concept is presented. A try-it-out section is given where you copy the code from the book, using the IDE etc. The code is then gone over line-by-line explaining what is going on.

The .net framework is huge, and I appreciated having this book so that I could learn the most important stuff first. There is so much that the book does not talk about, but it sets your feet correctly at the beginning of the path.

At times I would have liked more depth in the explanations of some of the code - things can get a little hand-wavy and you see stuff that just kind of plops there (why does he cast that object now, when before he didn't?).

But really, you can learn what you need quickly from this.

*Caveats*

1) The book assumes you are using the free WebMatrix IDE from Microsoft. Some others in the same book in VB complained that they got confused when they used Visual Studio. You have been warned.

2) The book claims to be "for beginners who have no previous experience with ASP, C#, XML, object-oriented programming, or the .NET framework. A little knowledge of HTML is useful, but not essential." - This is a joke. You need to know SQL, HTML, and have some kind of programming experience (VB or C++ - I know both) for this book to be useful. You don't have to know them very well, but you do have to have a clue. This book is *NOT* for people trying to create webpages with no previous experience. ... Read more