Writing

First Review of Professional XML

Bill Evjen — Thu, 31 May 2007 23:55:59 GMT

At least this is the first review of the Professional XML book that I have seen - there may be others. But Tech-Unity did a review and got some of the purposes of the book right on the button -

"This isn't a book about learning XML. This is a book about integrating XML into advanced programming and development. As the blurb on the back goes, "Wrox Professional Guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals". If that describes you and you need to add XML (and who doesn't these days) to your skill set and your projects, you're gonna love this book."

We made a big effort in making a book for the programmer that wants to make the best use of XML in their applications TODAY. This book is full of a lot of examples for both the .NET and Java developer in helping you to make that happen.

New Book - Professional VB 2005 with .NET 3.0!

Bill Evjen — Tue, 29 May 2007 10:03:46 GMT

Another book! I and some friends just finished a new release of our Visual Basic book. This is another book I wrote with the wonderful Kent Sharkey! :) We really cleaned up this version of the book. This book came together quite well and shows not only the core of .NET 2.0 in depth - but it also covers the new ground of .NET 3.0. The .NET Framework 3.0 includes the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), and the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF).

The table of contents of the book is as follows - (the new chapters are in yellow):

1. Understanding the .NET Framework.

2. Visual Basic 2005 Core Basics.

3. Object Syntax Introduction.

4. Object-Oriented Programming.

5. The Common Language Runtime.

6. Localization.

7. Generics.

8. Namespaces.

9. Exception Handling and Debugging.

10. Data Access with ADO.NET 2.0.

11. Using XML in Visual Basic 2005.

12. Security in the .NET Framework 2.0.

13. Visual Studio 2005.

14. Working with SQL Server.

15. Windows Forms.

16. Windows Forms Advanced Features.

17. Windows Presentation Foundation.

18. Integrating WPF with Windows Forms.

19. Working with ASP.NET 2.0.

20. ASP.NET 2.0 Advanced Features.

21. Assemblies.

22. Deployment.

23. Working with Classic .COM.

24. Threading.

25. Windows Workflow Foundation.

26. XML Web Services.

27. Remoting.

28. Enterprise Services.

29. Network Programming.

30. Windows Communication Foundation.

31. Windows Services.

32. Visual Basic and the Internet.

Appendix A. The VB.NET Compiler.

Appendix B. VB.NET References.

My Latest Book - Professional XML

Bill Evjen — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 22:52:00 GMT

This week marked the release of my latest book - Professional XML. I wrote this with friend Kent Sharkey and some other authors including Michael Kay (editor of the XSLT specification and other things). This book came out really nice and after quickly covering XML - goes straight into covering all the major technologies that are based upon XML. The Amazon site doesn't seem to provide the table of contents at the moment, so here it is:

1. XML Syntax
2. XML Editors
3. XHTML and CSS
4. XFL-FO
5. Document Type Definitions
6. XML Schemas
7. RELAX-NG
8. XSLT
9. XPATH
10. XQUERY
11. XML in the Data Tier
12. The XML Document Model (XML (DOM)
13. Simple API for XML (SAX)
14. Ajax
15. XML and .NET
16. XML and Java
17. Dynamic Languages and XML
18. RSS and Atom
19. Web Services
20. SOAP &WSDL
21. Advanced Web Services
22. REST
23. XML Form Development
24. Resource Description Framework
25. XML in Office
26. XAML

Scott Guthrie Gives Short Review of Professional ASP.NET 2.0 SE

Bill Evjen — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 03:05:00 GMT

It was nice to see "Mr. ASP.NET" himself (Scott Guthrie) give a nice review of the latest version of my ASP.NET 2.0 book on Amazon just recently!

Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition

Bill Evjen — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 02:07:00 GMT

Oh yeah .... Scott Hanselman beat me to the punch, but Mission “Build Biggest Book Possible” has been completed! Our Professional ASP.NET 2.0 book from Wrox just had to get bigger with all the cool stuff we wanted to add. 300 new pages! So big, that we could only offer the book in hardback because they don't make bindings big enough to handle all the pages (~1,700). Its called, Professional ASP.NET 2.0 Special Edition (because it is just so special). :)

And as was stated by others:

Here's a brief list of what's updated and new in this new edition.

FOUR completely new chapters:

Introduction to the Provider Model
Extending the Provider Model
Localization
Instrumentation

TWO new appendixes:

Migrating ASP.NET 1.x Projects
Using Atlas

...and dozens of additions throughout all the existing chapters, including:

Class Designers and Open Test Bench
Build providers
A More Complex Callback Example
Uploading multiple files from the same page
As an example, in Chapter 11, DataBinding in ASP.NET 2.0 these changes:
- Added SqlDataSource Configuration Wizard to add optimistic concurrency
- Added SqlDataSource Events, Using the SqlDataSource with Oracle, AccessDataSource Control
- Added GridView events that fire when the data binding occurs
- Added Using the TemplateField Column in the GridView Control
- Added Using the TemplateField's EditItemTemplate
- Added Expressions and Expression Builder
Using Oracle as Your Database with ASP.NET 2.0
Added Generating Custom XML from SQL 2005

That's the list up through about the first 1/2 of the book...there's a pile more...

And there's an added DVD which is the Visual Studio 2005 Professional 180 day trial, and there's an added CD which contains more than 1000 pages of selected chapters from other Wrox .NET 2.0, ASP.NET 2.0, VB 2005, C# 2005, and SQL Server books.

WROX Booth at TechEd 2006

Bill Evjen — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 19:35:00 GMT

Well, the Wrox booth has some goods to give out this year including the WROX BOX T-Shirt and the Wrox hat! I love freebies.

.NET 2.0 WROX BOX!

Bill Evjen — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 00:43:00 GMT

This is cheap for right under $100. Wrox is releasing their “WROX BOX” on Amazon starting May 9th and it includes the following books and chapters:

Professional ASP.NET 2.0
Professional C# 2005
Professional .NET Framework 2.0
Professional .NET 2.0 Generics
CD-ROM with more than 700 pages of bonus chapters from 10 other .NET 2.0 and SQL Server™ 2005 Wrox books
DVD with 180-day trial version of Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Professional Edition

This is a top of the line collection of Wrox books. One of my favorite books that is always on my desk is the Professional .NET 2.0 Generics book. This is the best coverage of the new generics features in .NET that I have seen and it is explained very well. The other book I like is the .NET Framework 2.0 book. This is really for advanced users of .NET that really want to dig in deep with the framework. Enjoy! To purchase, click here!

Uploading Files In ASP.NET 2.0

Bill Evjen — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 17:55:00 GMT

I just noticed when looking at the ASP.NET Developer Portal on MSDN that my new article on uploading files in ASP.NET 2.0 has come out. You can read the article here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/asp.net/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnaspp/html/UploadASP2.asp

Enjoy!

Wrox's Professional ASP.NET 2.0 FOR SALE!

Bill Evjen — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:29:00 GMT

Today, the book Scott Hanselman & Devin Rader & I put together (Professional ASP.NET 2.0), is for sale on Amazon. You can really tell that people are excited about ASP.NET 2.0 since the book is ranked 404 on the Amazon book list (as of 8am this morning) and is ranked #8 on the technology book list! ScottGu and team did an excellent job giving us one of the more outstanding technologies out there to put into production today! Cheers to the ASP.NET team!!!!

Random Notes on Halloween

Bill Evjen — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 18:12:00 GMT

Wow, looking at my editors site, there he is holding one of my latest books. Wow! Nice to see it on paper ... can't wait to get my copy!!!! :) I have worked on three books in the last year and a half and they are all coming out this week and next. I can't tell you how good this feels!

IT'S HALLOWEEN (just in case you didn't know). My kids were so excited, that they woke up at 4am! No kidding. So, what are the costumes this year? My daughter (7) is a ballerina, my youngest son (6mon) is a clown, and my oldest son (5) and myself are robots. We made our robot costumes the traditional way with boxes, foil and a bunch of wires and LED lights from Radio Shack that light up and blink on the front. I have a user group meeting tonight on 'Building a Reference Data Framework' to attend and decided to wear the robot costume there for fun. :)

And the award for the stupidest people of the month goes to the people handing out aid to victims of Hurricane Wilma. Seems they refused to hand out pallets of donated cans of water only because it was packaged by Anheuser-Busch and they were against beer. Ummmm, it's water first of all ... and second, it is free donations to help people. I personally applaud Anheuser-Busch for giving so much to all six hurricane storms that have hit the US this season.