I recently finished up a new article for Visual Studio Magazine that's now online for those that are interested.  It discusses how to integrate ASP.NET AJAX with back-end Web Services including Amazon.com's e-commerce service.  Read the article at the link below:

http://visualstudiomagazine.com/features/article.aspx?editorialsid=2374

Those interested in Silverlight can follow my Silverlight programming article series here.