Are you hesitant to migrate to Visual Studio(r) 2005? Maybe you're ready to upgrade to Visual Basic 2005 but feel a bit overwhelmed by ADO.NET 2.0 and the Visual Data Tools of this new release. In this hands-on guide, I'll share with you the best practices, the latest features, and advanced data management techniques with Visual Basic 2005 and SQL Server or SQL Server Express 2005. Plus, I'll incorporate simple to moderately complex project examples that feature real-world, database front-end applications with Windows and Web forms.

First, I'll begin with ADO.NET 2.0 basics, then I'll move on to designing and programming smart clients with typed DataSets as their data sources. Gradually, I'll walk you through using DataSource, GridView, and DetailsView Web controls. Finally, I'll demonstrate how to take advantage of the new T-SQL extensions, in-process Web services, and notifications.