Hello Wanita,

If there is a Barnes and Noble or similar in your area, try browsing through the ASP.NET section to see if there is a book that strikes the right tone. From your description, I think you might like the "Teach Yourself ASP.NET 2.0 in 24 Hours" or "Teach Yourself ASP.NET in 21 Days".

You might also like the "learn" section of the ASP.NET web site (http://www.asp.net/learn/). There is lots to choose from there: video tutorials, webcasts, step-by-step instructions, and more.

If you have some free time this summer, your local community college may offer an introductory ASP.NET course. It would have the advantage of hands-on practice to reinforce the material and a live person to ask questions.

Finally, there may be a .NET user group in your area. They are often a great resource for finding out what is available locally and they may even provide some training,

http://www.ineta.org/Des...?tabindex=1&tabid=20

The only books I have purchased for ASP.NET are Professional ASP.NET 2.0 from Wrox and ASP.NET Unleashed from Sams. I found them useful at the time, but they do not seem to fit with your description...mostly because they are both over 1200 pages long and go into great detail about every topic. I used them as references to supplement online articles and documentation when I was learning ASP.NET (Unleashed) and then the new 2.0 stuff.


I am not aware of an ASP.NET (or .NET) equivalent to Eric Meyer's books on CSS.

I have almost all the ASP.NET, CSS, Photoshop (up to CS2), etc... books in my office, because I'm a compulsive book addict, but I don't have anytime to read them anymore! I have entire bookshelves full of the red and yellow Wrox books (and I get rid of all outdated books every year too).

I find the things that get me up to speed the fastest is to pick up a book about a project from beginning to end. Like the ASP.NET *.0 Website Programming Problem-Design-Solution was a good one for me to learn from. I also learned tons by following the free Community Server code since its inception many years ago.

I joined my local INETA group and they're alot of fun to network and learn a bit, but if you want to learn fast, I'd learn from a beginner book on ASP.NET.

Hey, even the top programmers will never grasp the full universe of .Net. So, I would recommend just taking things in stride on this path. You might consider http://www.learnvisualstudio.net They have a great series on language basics. Also all the videos at http://www.asp.net/learn/default.aspx?tabid=63 can be a great help. These two urls should keep you busy for quite some time. A little bit of knowledge will carry you pretty far. Good luck!

If you go to Microsoft and download the free version on Visual Studio Web developer you can register the product and they will supply you with a great learning manual to get yourself started with coding in asp.net. You can choose whatever flavor you like (vb.net, C# & J#) I would recommend VB.NET as this is what powers BV5.

I picked up an ASP.NET 2.0 for Dummies book for one of our designers, and he really liked it. It was supposedly an easy read. There is a .NET user group in the Harrisburg area, but I have a feeling you wouldn't enjoy that.

Aaron