Step-by-Step Instruction on Complex Topics Leads You to the Expert Level Do you scour VB.NET books seeking solutions for esoteric database programming, debugging, security, or printing challenges, but can't ever find them? Are you wrestling with VB.NET's newer topics, such as asynchronous programming, Web services, employing Office objects, using reflection, and the .NET Compact Framework? Could you use some assistance making the transition from VB6 to VB.NET? If so, peer inside. Visual Basic .NET Power Tools is intended for professional programmers geared up to tackle the complex, cutting-edge, and sophisticated aspects of VB.NET. In this rare book, two world-renowned VB authors thoroughly describe a broad range of fascinating and important aspects of VB that aren't addressed elsewhere. This solutions-oriented guide teaches you how to: Get under the hood of the .NET Framework, and find out why it works the way it does Employ serialization techniques Leverage Microsoft Office in your applications Master encryption, hashing, and creating keys Learn advanced printing techniques Use the new reflection technology to look inside executing assemblies Build data-driven Web applications Design data-driven Windows applications Work with regular expressions Employ advanced graphics techniques Create professional-looking forms Design effective User Interfaces Use the .NET Compact Framework and its emerging technologies

VB Programmers: Get in Step with .NET With the introduction of Visual Basic .NET, VB transcends its traditional second-class status to become a full-fledged citizen of the object-oriented programming, letting you access the full power of the Windows platform for the first time. Written bythe author of the best-selling Mastering Visual Basic 6 this all-new edition is the resource you need to make a successful transition to .NET. Comprising in-depth explanations, practical examples, and handy reference information, its coverage includes: Mastering the new Windows Forms Designer and controls Building dynamic forms Using powerful Framework classes such as ArrayLists and HashTables Persisting objects to disk files Handling graphics and printing Achieving robustness via structured exception handling and debugging Developing your own classes and extending existing ones via inheritance Building custom Windows controls Building menus and list controls with custom-drawn items Using ADO.NET to build disconnected, distributed applications Using SQL queries and stored procedures with ADO.NET Facilitating database programming with the visual database tools Building web applications with ASP.NET and the rich web controls Designing web applications to access databases Using the DataGrid and DataList web controls Building XML web services to use with Windows and web applications Special topics like the Multiple Document Interface and powerful recursive programming techniques Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

A wealth of open and free software is available today for Windows developers who want to extend the development environment, reduce development effort, and increase productivity. This encyclopedic guide explores more than 100 free and open source tools available to programmers who build applications for Windows desktops and servers.

Addressing general readers as well as software practitioners, "Software and Mind" discusses the fallacies of the mechanistic ideology and the degradation of minds caused by these fallacies. Mechanism holds that every aspect of the world can be represented as a simple hierarchical structure of entities. But, while useful in fields like mathematics and manufacturing, this idea is generally worthless, because most aspects of the world are too complex to be reduced to simple hierarchical structures. Our software-related affairs, in particular, cannot be represented in this fashion. And yet, all programming theories and development systems, and all software applications, attempt to reduce real-world problems to neat hierarchical structures of data, operations, and features. Using Karl Popper's famous principles of demarcation between science and pseudoscience, the book shows that the mechanistic ideology has turned most of our software-related activities into pseudoscientific pursuits. Using mechanism as warrant, the software elites are promoting invalid, even fraudulent, software notions. They force us to depend on generic, inferior systems, instead of allowing us to develop software skills and to create our own systems. Software mechanism emulates the methods of manufacturing, and thereby restricts us to high levels of abstraction and simple, isolated structures. The benefits of software, however, can be attained only if we start with low-level elements and learn to create complex, interacting structures. Software, the book argues, is a non-mechanistic phenomenon. So it is akin to language, not to physical objects. Like language, it permits us to mirror the world in our minds and to communicate with it. Moreover, we increasingly depend on software in everything we do, in the same way that we depend on language. Thus, being restricted to mechanistic software is like thinking and communicating while being restricted to some ready-made sentences supplied by an elite. Ultimately, by impoverishing software, our elites are achieving what the totalitarian elite described by George Orwell in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" achieves by impoverishing language: they are degrading our minds.

After reading Programming the Web with Visual Basic .NET, developers will understand how to build and deploy top quality, professionally designed, highly usable Web applications using Visual Basic .NET.

Enter a New World of Database Programming Visual Basic .NET and ADO.NET facilitate the development of a new generation of database applications, including disconnected applications that run on the Web. Mastering Visual Basic .NET Database Programming is the resource you need to thrive in this new world. Assuming no prior experience with database programming, this book teaches you every aspect of the craft, from GUI design to server development to middle-tier implementation. If you're familiar with earlier versions of ADO, you'll master the many new features of ADO.NET all the more quickly. You'll also learn the importance of XML within the new .NET paradigm. Coverage includes: Getting familiar with the ADO.NET object model Using the data access wizards Taking advantage of new SQL Server 2000 features Carrying out XSL Transformations and XPath queries Generating XML using the T-SQL FOR XML statement Binding controls to ADO.NET result sets Arriving at a sound database design Tuning your SQL Server 2000 database Using the XML Designer in Visual Studio .NET Leveraging the data access tools available in the Visual Studio .NET IDE Working with .NET data providers Choosing between streaming data and caching data Working with the Data Form Wizard in Visual Studio .NET Using advanced ADO.NET techniques Building a threaded application Using .NET's advanced exception handling capabilities Using the .NET Deployment Project Template Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

This book contains simple and advanced scripting using both ESX and Linux commands to provide awesome virtual tools to automate administrative tasks of ESX Server.This book will cover the native tools that VMware provides with ESX Server. It will then discuss in detail the different scripting API's and how they can be leveraged to provide some very useful, practical and time saving tools to manage a virtual infrastructure. From virtual server provisioning to backups and everything in between, this book is a one stop shop for virtual tools.* An essential guide to virtualisation using both Linux and ESX commands* The companion Web site for book provides dozens for working scripts and tools presented in the book * Maximise VMware's powerful scripting language to automate time consuming administrative tasks