This is a useless book. It has so many errors that you will have headache. Very poor explanation. Normally MS Press books are good but Microsoft did a very poor job on this. I should use this book in fireplace to get some benifit out of it. I would like to give this book negative star if I can but I cant.

Definitely this book contains some useful material. The first chapters make a good impression, but as you go further you start to see that something is wrong. The author was facing an aggressive deadline and did not take into consideration anything.
The book will be thrilling to read for someone who already knows and have a hands on experience with .NET, because the book will make you think by making you try to resolve the unclear material. The author definitely knows his stuff and demonstrates that fact to you, but don't hope for any explanations they are beyond the scope of this book.
Also you will enjoy the wonderful late night "I WON" feeling, after succeeding actually to RUN the most of C# examples.

I kinda regret reading this book, because I have to read now an other one to pass the test.

The authors were apparently faced with an aggressive deadline for this book because it's exceptionally bad, even relative to other MS Press books. Due to the inaccurate writing and poor editing I wasted many late-night hours trying to get the sample code provided for the labs to run properly. Very little of the prescribed code even runs at all, without modification. Corrections for the most obvious errors are published on the MS Press support site but many of the other problems are quite subtle. I'm a decent programmer -- If I do say so myself -- but I had to spend a lot of time on ASP sites researching solutions to all these errors.

The code design recommendations are also surprisingly poor, the type of code one would expect from a very junior developer, possibly someone who's not even cut out for this line of work.

I usually enjoy MS Press titles, but this one was miserable. Other reviewers have mentioned the plethora of shoddy, uncompilable code, so I won't bother to mention any examples. It is worth noting, I suppose, that the VB.NET examples are in somewhat better shape than the C# examples because the authors apparently wrote their examples in VB.NET, but translated to C# without ever compiling, much less testing, their translation. How such a terrible mess could have slipped out the MS-Press door is quite beyond me.

If you are technically astute and comfortable with C#, you can probably debug your way through the sample code and derive some benefit from the book. But then we get to area where this book falls down completely: the authors seem to be completely clueless with regard to sound software design. As a service to readers, let me offer some insights into where the book misses the mark so that your code will not similarly go astray:

1. The authors describe abstract classes and interfaces, but do not describe why you would use one or the other. Of course, the key differentiator that the authors miss is that an abstract class can include default implementations of methods. Here's a rule of thumb: if derived classes can piggyback on an implementation of a common base method or methods, put the common code in an abstract class. Otherwise, use an interface.

2. The authors explain that you cannot derive a web form from another web form (i.e., there is no visual inheritance). This is true enough, but many shops, including my customers when I was an MS consultant, plus the one where I now work, use a Page-derived base class from which all page classes inherit. This allows you to provide common functionality across all the pages in your site.

3. On page 157, the authors would have us iterate through a RadioButtonList, check each one to see if it is checked, then perform some operation if it is. This is just dumb. A radio button list can have only one checked member, and it can be accessed by calling RadioButtonList.SelectedItem (or SelectedIndex or SelectedValue, depending on your situation).

4. On page 200, the page class sets stores "true" in ViewState["Changed"] in the TextBox_TextChanged event handler, then checks the value of ViewState["Changed"] in the butExit_Click event handler. Again, the code works, but it's really dumb. Both event handlers will get fired in the same postback, so you ought to give the class that implements the Page a boolean member variable with a default false value. When the TextChanged event fires, set the member variable to true. Then use the member variable in the butExit_Click method. Using ViewState in this situation is kind of like sending a package to your next-door neighbor via Fedex, rather than walking over and ringing his door bell.

5. On p. 254, the authors recommend instantiating a single database connection in global.asax and making it available for each user connection by setting a session variable in the Session_Start event handler. Supposedly, this design "conserves resources and makes it easier to maintain connection and adapter settings...." In fact, what this will do is make your web site scale miserably because every single user will have to wait in line while the others take turns sharing that single connection. **I cannot emphasize enough how bad this design is.**

Windows servers have built in connection-pooling capabilities that do a great job of conserving resources while providing good scalability. Just instantiate a new connection for every database operation, and allow the Windows infrastructure to do its magic behind the scenes. And if you're smart, you'll do this in a class (or classes) in a distinctive logical tier that most designers call the data access layer. However, the three-tier (later n-tier) design revolution that swept through the Windows software world starting about 6 years ago seems to have completely escaped the notice of our authors.

6. On p. 261, the authors use a typed dataset with a type name of dsContacts. They also have a member variable with the name of dsContacts. Does anyone else see the potential for confusion here?

7. On p. 385, the authors recommend using user name as the primary key for a user table. The problems this database design will cause are severe.

* When the second "John Smith" or "Mary Jones" tries to access your system, you'll get a database error. The only workaround is to get John or Mary to use a different name. Yeah, right.

* Using a long string as a foreign key on other tables that reference the user table leads to inefficient space utilization and terrible performance when you do joins.

Anybody who knows anything about database design knows that you set up some kind of guaranteed unique key, such as an auto-increment integer, and make name an attribute of the user.

8. The authors fail to note that if session state uses the sqlserver mode, session state will survive a reset when web.config is changed, so users will not be adversely affected.

9. On p. 408, the authors ignore the security implications of causing an authentication cookie to be written to a user's hard drive. This is a recipe for disaster for users who are accessing a web app from a public location (library, kiosk, Kinko's, etc.) because subsequent users will have access to their credentials by virtue of the authentication cookie already on the hard drive. Do your users a favor and set the createPersistentCookie parameter to false when you call RedirectFromLoginPage().

I could write a much lengthier list of "really dumb coding ideas" to accompany this list of really dumb design ideas, but space does not permit. So let me conclude by stating what should by now be obvious: if you have extensive experience with object-oriented web programming in a multi-tier design paradigm, but simply lack exposure to ASP.NET syntax, you can probably find something useful in this book. Otherwise, stay away!

I purchased the first edition of this book--which is twice as big as the one currently in the bookstore (2nd edition). I was very disappointed with the first. As I browsed the 2nd edition in the bookstore, my faith in the MSPress series was not restored.

Bottom line: buy the Amit Kalani book from Que instead. That is tremendously better. I think it is the best book for studying the material on the test. Also, don't forget to get the Trancender exams and flash cards. They too are also very helpful.

This book should not put Exams word in the cover. It is very misleading. Because it is offical published by Miccrsoft Press, many people would think that it is enough to pass exam. It should warn readers not to rely this book for Exam. If you do rely, you will fail.

I hope all other readers are aware of this. Don't waste money buying this book for passing exam.

This book should not put Exams word in the cover. It is very misleading. Because it is offical published by Miccrsoft Press, many people would think that it is enough to pass exam. It should warn readers not to rely this book for Exam. If you do rely, you will fail.

I hope all other readers are aware of this. Don't waste money buying this book for passing exam.

I've been in this field for almost 10 years and this is definitely the worst technical book i've ever seen. If the authors were working for me, I'd fire them, quickly. The code is poorly written; doesn't follow C# coding standards published by MS, many of the examples produce errors when compiling the unedited code from the accompanying CD, the text is riddled with wrong information, etc. Do you like debugging code written by authors who are supposed to be showing you how to do things? Much of it doesn't compile. You'll do lots of that. Goto support.microsoft.com and enter knowledge base id = 326884 to see the running list of errors. They gave up compiling the list around page 200 of a 700+ page book (got too long?). Believe me they didn't document more than 10% of the errors in the first 200 pages. Don't waste ANY money or TIME reading this book. There are plenty of other choices.

I wanted my money back. I bought this book specifically to prepare me for Exam 70-305. I bought this book because it was the official book from Microsoft so I thought surely this will prepare me for the exam.

I found the language in the book stilted and formal. It is written as though English was the second language of the authors. While grammatically, the style is not one that easily conveys ideas. I would have been ok with that though if the book covered the material on the test.

This book does not cover remoting at all. Neither does it adequately cover deployment. The only thing the book discusses regarding deployment is xcopy. The official test ask questions about web setup options using installer. I felt really angry about that and felt I had wasted my time and my money. This book will NOT adequately prepare you for the exam.
The test cd that came with the book was next to worthless. The demo questions are not representative in style or content of what they ask on the official test and the demo test is not in a format that is conducive to studying. You dont' know the details of what you missed and why your answers were wrong.

If you want a book to get up to speed on .net I highly recommend ASP.NET Unleashed by Stephen Walther. It is a practical book that will be more than adequate for most of the projects you will probably ever work on.
The microsoft test covers more arcane subject matter however so I would not rely on this book either for passing the official test.

For the same amount of money you spend on the microsoft book you can go to measureup.com and download or study on line their program for the test. Their test questions are much more representative of the real test in terms of style and content.
The test questions can be analyzed by subject matter and test goal. They reference the sections of either the .net framework documentation or the visual studio .net framework you need to pass the test. I found my study time much more productive in preparing me for the test.
Don't waste your money on the microsoft press book.

As true with Microsoft Products, later versions of book will improve. This book gives a feeling that it was rushed to Press. The examples either omit a few steps or assumes reader is already familiar with intricacies ( which doesn't make sense.If they were, they wont be reading this book). Dont expect that all the examples will run out of box. You will have to fiddle around to make them work. I guess that will make you proficient in Web Programming :) May be the second edition will address those issues. The chapters somehow appear to be inadequate for the topics they address.
All that said, The Book does give good introduction to various
facets of Web Programming. This book alone is definitely not sufficient to master Web Programming but a good start...

Average in its coverage of all the topics required to pass the exam. Needs a stronger base on the User controls and Server controls topics. It is a bit above average on its coverage of ADO.NET and it is also lacking on topics that touch on security� it very much �skims� over all these topics but this is not enough to pass the test.

I would recommend a nice book on ADO.NET such as Dave Sceppa's ADO.NET Core Reference in addition to this book as a resource to prepare for the exam. You HAVE to consult other sources to get in depth information on all that is required to pass the test.

For the test, there is no substitute for experience, but MSDN online is an EXCELLENT resource that everyone should leverage, test or real life.

If you are taking the test, good luck, otherwise happy .NETing!

This book serves its purpose sufficiently: It is a study guide for the 70-315 test.

I was able to pass the 70-315 with the help of this book and the MSDN documentation. Most, but not all, of the test content is covered within the book. The book comes with an evaluation copy of Visual Studio .NET, a practice exam, and each chapter contains a number of practice labs to give you some real practice in using .NET

The chapters are well organized and cover the bare essentials of how to create web forms using .NET. You can plug blindly through the labs and at the end of them, you'll have a few working web pages to tinker with.

The practice exam was poorly worded, overly complicated, and some of the answers were ambiguous. In addition, the exam will not tell you the right answers or the reasons why. It just gives you a percentage score.

Don't count on keeping this book around on your reference shelf when you're through with it. I have tried to go back to this book when I needed help with programming, but it has yet to be helpful. The book does not cover concepts in great enough detail, it does not enforce solid application design concepts, and it uses simplified examples. The labs at the end rely heavily using design time controls and using the design wizards to add components to the web forms. Most of the data access uses embedded SQL and a few rather dirty tricks.

Buy this book, pass the test, and pass it on to someone else.

I found the book poorly written and confusing. I found significant coding errors that a novice would find very frustrating. If you are new to .NET, I believe this book will do more to confuse you than teach you. If you are preparing for the exam, many of the exam objectives are not adequately covered. I expect the exam to have in-depth questions about DataSets, Server Controls and ASP.NET web site design scenarios. All you get is error-prone code examples and one or two generic overview. I highly suggest bypassing this book and look for alternative means to studying the exam objectives.

Don't waste your time and money buying this book and preparing the exam using this book. Use Amit Kalani's book instead.

I just passed the exam 70-315 C# version. The material I used are this book, MSDN on line help on some special topics and transcender practice kit. The transcender kit is very help in preparing for the exam after you completed reading this book and MSDN online helps. The coverage on ADO.Net is very basic, I passed 70-316 a few month ago. The coverage for ADO.Net is almost the same.

The book is more like a getting started book which introduces you to the basics of ASP.NET. While it covers most of the exam objectives, the book does not go into the proper depth that will match the type of quetions in a real exam. It is like telling you what ASP.NET is capable of doing and go find it out yourself.
Like other MS Press self-paced training kit, each chapter contains several lessons, followed a Lab workshop at the end. Each lesson itself includes code samples and the Lab workshop is a round-up of the lessons in that chapter.
I doubt the appropriateness of these lesson in an ASP.NET book: Using HTML Help Workshop, Using Cascading Style Sheet, Using Frames, Using Client-Side Scripts (these two lessons are in the Chapter titled Advanced Web Form Programming, so you may have an idea what advanced means in this book.), and the whole chapter on Working With Multimedia. I would look elsewhere for a web design book. ASP is data- and component-driven and is about server-side programming after all.
Overall I would say this book is ok. If have budgeted for only one book to prepare for the .NET Web applications exam, this may not be your choice.

Any publisher of technical books worth their salt should endeavour to have a book reviewed by actual people before it is published. I don't know if that is Wrox's process, but most of the books I have read from them are far higher quality than this one from Microsoft Press. I'm only at Chapter 6, but if the examples in the last half of the book are typical of the ones I have run into so far, my timetable for learning this is in trouble. Even the examples off the CD have errors in some cases. Now some may say that that is the real way to learn .NET. Get your hands dirty. However, a few errors give me the impression that the author wrote this during prebeta and didn't go back and check assumptions. A C# class is a referenced variable right? Why would you need to go back and update the original class for classnew = Session["classoriginal"] after you changed classnew even if it is a Session variable. It IS the original variable by reference, right? I get suspicious when I disagree with an author on basics? You may wonder why I still give it 3 stars (given that I would expect a lot more from Microsoft Press). Despite it's example issues, it still is a comprehensive and well laid out book and right now it's really near the top of the heap when it comes to ASP.NET and obtaining your MCAD/MCSD. I would not make this your only book however. Check out what other people bought when they bought this one and check the reviews on them. For myself, I also have Wrox Professional ADO.NET, Building Web Solutions with ASP.NET and ADO.NET, SAMS ASP.NET Unleashed and Wrox ASP.NET Web Services (which I might review when I get through them). I am still looking for the ultimate book.

There's only one sure-fire way to prepare for a test and it's via the official MS Press books. While they may not be the easiest or most fun to read, if you read this book you WILL be prepared to take your test.

Skip this book!!! Microsoft should have done a better job reviewing this book for content value. Try the ASP.NET And ADO.NET book instead (Esposito).

This book is great to get the necessary info for the exam. Unfortunally, it's not enough. I'd recommend to combine it with Wrox's Professional C#, Wrox's Professional ASP.net and Microsoft Official Curriculum for ADO.net. Anyway, this book it's a must if you reallya are seroius about the exam.

I bought this book together with the self-study guide for 30-316 (Developing Windows Applications with .NET). I had already passed exam 70-316 before starting to prepare for 70-315. I liked this book better than 316 because it has more chapters and fewer lessons per chapter. Since there is one lab per chapter, I got to do labs more often and practice a smaller set of skills at a time.

The chapters on XSLT and web security were quite digestible. The lessons on custom controls however, were a bit tough especially because I could not get the correct results in the lab. I rank ADO.NET as a special skill, judging by the thorough way that it is tested in exams. You cannot expect great coverage of ADO.NET in a book that is not primarily dedicated to the topic. And even though this book does not provide that kind of coverage it does explain the ubiquitous DataGrid and DataList controls and gives a good picture of how to do data binding. I found it necessary to review the ADO.NET material in the 70-316 book as well. The quality of the remaining topics is satisfactory.

I would say that the practice test was quite adequate. I might have thought otherwise if I had not got a score of 70 and 84 percent the two times that I took it. I did not like the fact that you cannot pause the test, something that the 70-316 practice test lets you do. I found the exam quite challenging because a lot of the questions tested the key aspects of a professional website such as security, performance, scalability, migration, etc. So be sure to review forms authentification, stored procedures, caching, web farms and gardens and working with legacy ADO pages. And above all - practice on your own!

I read this book from cover to cover. This book [is bad] in a lot of ways, first it contains loads of errors. Lot of codes for the labs WILL NOT WORK. This is my first time MS book purchase so i donot know how often it happens. second it does not cover lot of stuff that is on the exam. Very little is talked about ADO.NET, far from enough. Also for class directives. This book only list some of the names for the page class property/method, w/o further discussion. You have to go to msdn to find all the stuff that will make sense. Looks like MS publishes this book to mislead people so nobody can get passed.
The only thing good about this book is the structure is well laid out. You can get a general idea about what .net web application development is about from reading this book. But this book is far short from test preparation. The CD issue does not bother me much, you can get the .mdb file from the CD. get the password and there is a table contains all the correct answers. cmon guys you are preparing MCSD so i know y'all can do this. But it does not have explainations and 50 easy questions wont prepare you for the exam.

This book just covers the basics of all topics. The examples in the book are not fully explanatory and the Exam test provided on CDROM does not give any explanation of the answers. I took the practice test several times and getting 13 wrong answers everytime which I think to be correct. There is no way to know which questions I gave wrong answers and their correct answers. I don't recommend to simply rely on this book for the preparation of MCP Exam.

I expect more from Microsoft. Perhaps I shouldn't but I do. Besides the ever present grammatical mistakes, there are a plethora of logic errors which make it impossible for a beginner to learn. Also, some key topics are used before they are discussed in the text.

Try another book

Though this book does indeed have useful information in it (which is the only reason I gave it as many as two stars), I could never get over the glaringly heavy VB bias of the text. I'm studying C#, not VB.NET and it *appears* this author has no experience outside of the bubble world of VB. It is clear that this book was written specifically for VB.NET and later, someone came along and added C# code samples to it. Virtually all of the terminology in the book is VB terminology which has no place outside of the shielded world of VB. For example, "event procedure" is used on almost every page, where "event handler" should have been used. "sub Main" is used where no such term exists outside of VB.net. "Imports" is used in the text where the C# version is "using". Very annoying. Every page has AT LEAST one or more errors and/or VB bias. Most pages have multiples. The sample test application has a less than amateur UI and asks VB.NET questions even when you tell it you're taking the C# path. Also, it does not tell you what answers you missed!... Only a final score. If you uninstall the test application, you hose your .NET settings on your IIS server!! This is documented on the errors web page for the book on Microsoft's own site... speaking of which, they only list a tiny tiny percentage of the actual errors that are in the book.

Stay away from this book. I see that the 2nd edition is about to come out. Hold off and get that one. Hopefully they'll have fixed many of these annoyances and errors in that edition.

This "study guide" is more an overview of ASP.NET. It merely touches on the topics and does not go into much detail. Granted it does contain some useful information that you may not find in other books, but it does not prepare you for the test. Also, the CD is very poor; it does not allow you to choose the number of questions, nor does it provide you with the explanation for the correct answers. Study on your own for this one.

Teaching the 2 languges side by side is really annoying. While I can understand the reasoning for it it just makes things more confusing.

The overall content is good, only experienced developrs should apply.

The simulated test application that comes with the book is full of errors. It doesn't even tell you which questions you missed. You would also expect the book to cover all topics that are on the test that comes with it but it doesn't.

The MsPress site has 0 erratas for the book as well. This will be my last MS press book.

I regret buying this book. It has been very frustrating to use. There are frequently small bits of code missing which result in things not working as they should, if at all. I know enough (from OTHER ASP.NET books) to have a general idea of what is wrong, but it is still quite frustrating. I've been particularly disappointed by the ADO.NET chapter. I wanted to use this book as a study resource to prepare for the MCAD web apps certification exam, which the book is supposedly a training kit for. Instead I feel I've wasted time and money. I'm just glad I didn't pay full price. Personally, I recommend Stephen Walther's ASP.NET Unleashed and the O'Reilly ASP.NET Nutshell book. Both are much better.

Overall I found the content of the book to be very good. Even though it's supposed to be a study guide for the exams, you could use it as a guide to explore all (most) of the features of ASP.Net apps.

The samples did not install correctly and took some work to get going, and like many people have said, errors in the code abound which is one thing I just can't accept from ANY technical book writer. Really, doesn't everyone who writes programs know there are COMPILERS that will check the syntax of your code??? I'm always terribly annoyed when authors can't get that right...

The other frustrating problem I had is that some of the most difficult parts of the book are described so quickly, you'd have to know how to do what they're asking for to figure it out. For example, DataGrids have a bazillion features and options and they skim all too quickly through their configuration. Most parts are explained well and slowly enough that it's easy to follow.

And I just checked the MSPress website and there is no list of book corrections to view meaning every book reader is on their own to figure the problems out on their own. Have fun!

Microsoft has always published great books and this one is also very good. The pace is slow, but it covers a lot of detail. I am looking forward to finishing this book and taking the exam.

A good drill of the topics covered in the exam.

That's a very interesting book but that's true that it isn't enough. It must be completed with a good book about .NET framework fundamentals. ...at least if you're planning to go for the exam!

I had about 6+ months of experience with .NET, mostly with ASP .NET and I also used the All-in-one MCSD C# book by Osborne. The most valuable tool from this kit is the sample test included with it. Be aware that the test will only give you a score, it won't tell you whether you passed or failed and it won't tell you the right answers (although I've seen the password for the database in the MCAD MS newsgroup).

There are some very basic sections in this book and some are somewhat irrelevant for the test. For instance the chapter on working with multimedia. There are also some test objectives that are vaguely covered, for instance using Platform invoke. On the other hand there are some chapters that go into a lot of detail, I specially like the depth they go into creating custom controls libraries.

It is true this book may not enough to pass the test, don't rely on it as your only source, especially if you have no previous experience with .NET. This is not a typical exam cram book. I would've like exam tips, or highlighting critical concepts for the test, as well as a quick review guide per chapter. The approach taken in this book is to prepare you for the test by doing. There are very valuable examples in this book as well as in the labs. If you have little to none experience with .NET, doing as many of these examples is critical for preparation for the test. Consequently this is a more long-term preparation book.

What I found really annoying from this book is the incredible amount of typos/mistakes in it. Some are minor typos, but others can be very misleading. For instance page 319 mentions a SaveXML method of a DataSet, there's no such thing, it should read WriteXML. Page 548 the line of code 'return null' should read 'return ""', it's even written in a comment above it. Page 295 "To turn tracing on ... set ... Trace property to False", should read "To turn tracing off".

I strongly recommend reading the MSDN documentation for relevant topics, there's a very good compilation of links per objective, which you can find at codeclinic.com.

This book covers all the topics that you will need for the exam, but I don't think that it will be enough to make you pass the exam.

ADO.NET for example is only covered in Chapter 5 and not in great details.
The exam on the CD only contains 50 questions, and it's really REALLY annoying that you can not review your answers at the end!

Here are the additional resources that will help you pass the exam
1- transcender exams -- am a big fan and their exams are usually harder than the real one. Moreover, you'll know exactly what to expect for the real exam after doing the transcender ones!
2- Wrox ASP.NET Professional covers some features such as ADO.NET in much more details that this MS Press book does, and you will need that for the exam

So, in a few words, this book is good, and I would recommend it, but it is simply not enough to pass the exam

Good luck!

The book covers a good number of topics however falls short in quite a few ways.

We purchased this book for junior programmers to make sure they had all the basics. They had trouble setting up the examples and the directions for setup were not very clear. The install could have easily setup the sample files and virtual directories but instead was only copied to a folder on the pc.

Once setup, you need to fix one of the examples that points to \\oemcomputer in a solution file. You can open the .sln file in notepad and change the location.

The csWebNamespace example in chapter two does not work.

The csState example takes an extra button click to register that a new text was written in the webform at run time. For example, if you started with WOMBAT then typed FOO; the screen would repeat WOMBAT. Click again and it would say FOO.

We are testing the examples so that our junior programmers do not waste their time.

Additionally, at least one example can be found almost word for word in the help file .net sdk.

It is not good that there are a number of errors in the first chapters of the book where the examples are relatively simple.

This book pretty much fails to be a useful reference and study guide for the MCAD/MCSD test. It is written in an extremely abbreviated "for beginners" sort of style that utilizes lots of bullets and tables. This would be great if the content were coherently assembled, but I've worked with ASP.Net for over a year and the information looked like it was put together by a committee of editors who had no idea how to use this stuff. There were holes in the explanation big enough to drive trucks though. This combination of simple syntax and incomprehensible content make this book confusing, frustrating, and about as understandable as a patent brochure. One thing's for certain--it sure helps me go to sleep at night (that is, when I'm not seething about the (money) I spent).

Why don't I just send it back? Well, I thought that at least the practice test would be worth something so I ripped open the paper cd container thingy in the back and tried the test. The questions did indeed seem pretty dead-on Microsoft Test-type questions, but when I tried to see the answers for the questions... there were none. What is the use of a practice test if you can't review the test answers?

This was simply one of the worst technical books I've ever purchased. Don't buy it if you can help it.

Much of this book is aimed at beginners. While this gets a bit tedious for many people seeking certification, a good grasp of the basics can help each of us become better programmers. If you have programmed web apps before, you will find the first chapter to be largely a waste of time. The next three will have some useful information, but only if you have never coded any .NET applications.

Around chapter 5, you may actually start to get some useful information, as this chapter is on ADO.NET, which is core to creating Enterprise level web applications. Much of the material here is fairly basic, however.

At this point in time, it probably sounds like I detest this book. I don't! There are a couple of real gems in this work, that are reason enough to buy it, even if you do not intend on getting certified. They are:

1. Chapter 9: Building and Deploying Web Applicatins: While the material is a bit basic, this is the only book that gets down to specifics on working with applications in web farms.

2. Chapter 10: Testing Web Applications: Some of the material in this chapter is highly useful even if you do not code for the Microsoft .NET platform.

3. Chapter 11: Creating Custom Web Controls: Once again, a bit basic, but the material is solid and gave me a great head start on developing my own custom controls.

4. Chapter 15: Globalizing Web Applications: While I do not agree with some of the Microsoft theory, like using resource files (in a web app?), learning how to set up an application for different languages is priceless in the day and age of global applications.

Now, to the important question: Do I think you can pass the test with this book alone? Possibly. But, only if you really followed through on doing all of the exercises. This book, and a good sample test, is all you are likely to need to get the job done.

My personal feeling on this book is it is well worth the price I paid, as I gleaned out a couple of really great techniques. While a few pointers may not justify the price tag for everyone, I consider what my time is worth and whether or not using a book cuts time out of searching through the help files. In the case of custom controls and globalization, the answer is a firm yes.

Another strong plus is the fact that the book contains an electronic copy on the CD-ROM. There is also a practice test, but I would not rely on it alone for gauging your competence. If you do not have a copy of Visual Studio .NET, this book also comes with a DVD with a 60 day Visual Studio .NET Professional trial.

Good primer. The labs are good. You learn a lot more by getting your hands dirty rather than studying the theory.

The book is a good introduction and overview of all the information needed to pass the test. But it is full of typos, and a lot of the sample code doesn't work without modification. The C# sample code is especially bad; it seems that they only tested the VB code and then just translated it to C# without testing. I found several errors in the attempts at exception handling. Even when the code is not wrong, it looks very amateurish. In a way, it is a good workout, as it forces you to learn enough to fix the code, but I am pretty sure that I haven't learned any "best practices" from this book.

The book needed some more review and polishing before being published. It's the only official study guide available now--it's too bad that no other choices are available.

I purchased the book but had to return it because the system requirements for the accompaning software would have required me to purchase a new computer. The book is worthless without the software. Since I am unemployed, purchasing a 450 MegHz, Pentium 4 running on Win2000 or Xp Pro, and having a DVD Rom drive was out of the question.

I think the book does the job it was written for---to prepare you for an exam. It's not meant to be a primer as you need to be familiar with C#.NET or VB.NET to fully understand what's going on. You definitely need to get some hands-on practice and read other ASP.NET/ADO.NET/etc books, but given the task of tutoring you it. deserves its five stars.

Simply put: There is not enough information in this book to come close to passing the actual exam (If the beta exam is any measure).

Seems MS rushed this one out the door, most of the information contained in the book is straight from the online help, and the quickstart tutorial... save your dough!

I used this book almost exclusively to prepare for the beta exam (along with MSDN). Overall I'd say the book does a pretty good job of preparing you. If you really want to be sure I'd get ADO.NET, ASP.NET, and XML book(s) to complement it.

I didn't have time to run through all the labs, but the ones I did do worked just fine.

The test-prep software does have good questions, but (as other posters have mentioned) it doesn't give any feedback about if you got the question right or wrong. If you are not used to MCP exams, I'd purchase some 'third party' test-prep software also.

It is a gigantic leap forward for a MS-Press book. I've never been a fan on MS-Press's 'Test Prep' books, but this one can legitimately compete 'third party' books.

I just took and passed the Windows version of this test. A big problem for me was that not everything on the test was very well documented online (IMHO) and the study materials weren't available yet.

This book does seem to cover most of the objectives of what I know will be on the Web version of the test but you will also need to go through the online reference material, especially the walkthroughs and .Net framework BCL, to get more details and a good feel for the subject.

This is usually the case with study materials. You can't expect any one book to be comprehensive (even if they say so)- you need to consult many sources and give yourself a few months to practice and get a feel for the material. The most you can hope for is an overview of what will be on the test.

I've passed about 10 different Microsoft tests (I'm an MCSD) so my opinions about this should be considered even if you don't agree with them.

The practice test on the CD has very good questions but doesn't tell you which ones you get right or wrong, which was a pain for me.

One thing I like about this book is all the practice labs. I find it more useful to learn by doing than by reading.

Much of the Windows test was just common sense so I think if you use this book, go to the online docs for more details and walkthroughs, then read each question very very carefully and use common sense you should be able to pass this test also.

No this book is not for beginners (there are plenty of good books and online material for beginners). Why would a certification book be targeted at beginners?

All in all, I'm glad I got this book and I do recommend it.

I agree with most of the readers here: the book is quite a shame.
I often had to figure out myself the code needed (i.e. they used classes but they didn't show how to define them first). I guess it shows what's expected to be known on the exam, but I'm helping my study with the good old MSDN and other books (Troelsen & c.).
Too much money for such poor contents...

I can tell from reading the first few chapters of this book that the author assumes you know somewhat about ASP and concept of OO programming as well as the intrinsic and functional objects ASP has to offer.

YOU MUST KNOW EITHER VB.NET OR C# TO READ THIS BOOK!

I have been developing in C# for over a year now and I can tell you that there are concepts in the book that you will not be able to understand unless you know either VB.net or C#. I also noticed how there was a discussion about server control events and an example of an Event Handler procedure/method but the author failed to discuss how you need to add a new EventHandler object to the server control's event handler property in order for the example to work.

For example, on page66 there is a code example of an event handler procedure for a button (Button1_Click) but no mention of the event handler being defined like this (for C#):

Button1.ClickEvent += new System.EventHandler(this.Button1_Click);

If you don't add this code to the example you the event will NOT be raised and the example will fail when run!

So, LEARN, LEARN, LEARN either VB.NET or C# WELL before reading this book!

Other than the assumptions the author makes about the reader's understaning of the underlying languages and ASP I thought it was a pretty good book to prep for MCAD exam for!

Good luck to all on the exam!

The book as a whole is a good training book with lessons (4-stars) Be advised...the CD test that comes with this kit is very limited; it does not allow you to choose the number of questions, does not show you which questions you got correctly/incorrectly, and does NOT show you the correct questions (no question review). That said, the CD is pretty much useless. (1-star) Overall: 2.5 stars.

What's not to like? This voluminous certification guide for the web side of Microsoft's latest application development technology, .NET, is surprisingly geared toward beginners and even includes a brief primer on web programmming concepts for those who've never done web apps before. More advanced readers will skip the early sections and quickly sink their teeth into the more in-depth chapters, especially on the new features of ASP .NET.

Despite the size, which is considerable, the writing style is brisk and easy to read, and there are plenty of diagrams and references to additional material. The presentation of most concepts is in a lesson plan form that is alternatively refreshing and tedious, depending on the familiarity of the material, probably no fault of the format itself.

Readers hoping for an Exam Cram version that is stripped to bare essentials may be disappointed, Microsoft seems to want readers to fundamentally understand the concepts rather than absorb raw facts to pass a test. While this is probably good for those who really want to learn the technology, it will leave those looking for a no-frills Cliff Notes overview a little frustrated.

Kudos on the .NET DVD and exam prep CD, although I haven't used the 2nd one yet.

There seems to be adequate coverage of both VB .NET and C# but like most .NET material, there seems to be a subtle bias towards the VB language for ASP related material.

All-in-all the package is worth the fairly steep price, although you are getting a comprehensive study guide including running versions of the products. Hopefully the rest of the .NET certification series will be as thorough.

Check out the table of contents for this book before you buy it! It arrived in the mail today. What a disappointment. The cover looks great and the title sounds great. This is "an intro to web development using ASP.NET" book. In fact, that's what its title should be.

Take a look at the table of contents on mspress' site. Here are a few topics:

* How Web Applications Work
* Parts of a Web Application
* The Start Page
* The Toolbox
* Editing Code
* Getting Help
* Using Frames
* Setting Up a Virtual Folder
* Playing Audio
* Displaying Video
* Using Cascading Style Sheets
* etc...the list goes on

Ok, none of this [junk] is on the exam the cover claims to prepare you for! Better luck with a professional asp.net wrox press book. Unfortunately, this one is only for the absolute beginners...might be ok if this is your very first asp.net or web development book.

This book doesn't give a writer's credit, and if I were the writer I wouldn't mind, because it wouldn't be a feather in my cap.

Since this book is "official" from Mount Olympus, you probably need it to get a good idea of what concepts will be tested. Other than that, though, it's not worth a lot.

Microsoft should be ashamed of publishing this book.

As you struggle through it, you'd better have other references or online doc at the ready to help you navigate through the unexplained terms, the incomplete tables, the inconsistent use of terms, the out-of-context code fragments, the persistent MPC (Microsoft Politically Correct) terminology, AND the completely wrong statements. Wow...

It does have a pretty cover, though. That's why I gave it two stars instead of one.

Mike