If your .NET skills are already solid, then this book is still for you.

These ten-minute solutions fill the gaps in your knowledge: from them, you'll learn a lot about the realities of programming with .NET technologies, whether you're writing database applications, web applications, or desktop applications.

But they're also solutions to the problems you're most likely to encounter in each of these areas. Particularly when a project entails new techniques or draws you into a realm outside your expertise, you need quick and reliable answers. Here, a couple of veterans provide them. Based on the popular question-and-answer feature of the DevX website, all are in-depth, code-intensive solutions that explain both the how and the why, helping you past immediate obstacles and ultimately making you a more knowledgeable programmer. Here are some of the solutions you'll find inside:

• The new ListBox control's data model: how it differs, how to work with it, why it's better



• The new I/O model: storing and retrieving complete objects with streams



• Launching and monitoring external programs from VB.NET applications: the Process class and how it improves on classic VB Shell command



• ADO.NET support for keeping calculated columns up to date automatically



• Moving data between distributed tiers and keeping it synchronized using DiffGrams

Solutions are organized into three categories: general .NET topics that cut across category boundaries, problems that arise when you're building Windows forms, and issues associated specifically with ADO.NET and ASP.NET programming chores. The book contains VB.NET code examples for every solution.