My Book Excerpts at the Beginner Developer Learning Centre
Hey folks, Microsoft has licensed four chapters of my book, ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies! You can browse the chapters at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/beginner/cc409659.aspx in the Microsoft Visual Studio Express Editions Beginner Developer Learning Centre.
Yup, MS has some of the best chapters and makes them available to you for free. You need the XPS viewer to read them.
- Chapter 5: Handling User Input and Events
In this Chapter we cover gathering data and pushing buttons, using drop-down lists and list boxes, presenting multiple choices, and sending data with forms. - Chapter 7: LINQ as a Data Language
In this Chapter we look at using From, Where, and Select clauses, filtering, grouping, and narrowing scope, aggregating, creating and querying XML with LINQ, and using object initializers. - Chapter 8: Using LINQ to SQL and the LinqDataSource
Diving deeper into LINQ, we'll cover using the object relational designer, filtering data in LinqDataSource, understanding LINQ to SQL syntax, grouping and displaying hierarchical data, updating and inserting with DataContext, and creating a user interface with the ListView control. - Chapter 15: Enhancing Pages with the AJAX Control Toolkit
In this Chapter we cover completing data as users type, using a lookup Web service, masking and watermarking text boxes, creating a pop-up calendar, and keeping content on top.
Note that there's an error on the page: You need Visual Web Developer 2008 for LINQ, not 2005.
There's tons of free information for Web development beginners at MSDN. It's a great resource that has gone unnoticed (by me at least) for too long!