Rating: 
Summary: Best guide to using Visual Studio
Review: ASP.NET Kick Start is just what I was looking for to help me
learn how to use Visual Studio. I learn best with the
step-by-step approach (click on this, now type that, etc.)
Also, I love that Stephen Walther gives code examples in BOTH
C# and VB.I feel much more confident about using Visual Studio now and
am excited to start using it to replace the old stuff that I
developed using VBScript. If I am ever given another software package to use (which is highly likely where I work, believe me), I will definitely considering buying another Sams book.
Rating:
Summary: Good book for beginner. And for deploying rapid prototype
Review: Good book, easy to read, maybe too easy!!! Repetitive explanations on how to connect to with slqDataConnection...
But for beginner, it's a good introduction to the world of ASP.NET. You will have to read a couples of other books to really understand the amplitude of this new technology.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic book for Visual Studio.NET users
Review: I did a lot of research before picking up this .NET book. I must say it has exceeded my expectations by a long shot! It's simply fantastic! I just started ASP.NET programming, and it really helps that there are step-by-step instructions on how to do all the procedures. The author makes no assumptions as to readers' proficiency in using VS.NET. Also it's great that examples are all given in both C# and VB.NET. Get this book if you are (1) a VS.NET user and (2) are a beginner to ASP.NET but intend to be proficient in it and (3) use C# or VB.NET.
Rating: 
Summary: Exceptionally well written but no source code and errata
Review: I found this to be the best book to get up and running with Visual Studio .NET in the shortest amount of time. This book is written in a clear and concise manor. However, some of the code(VB.Net) didn't work on my computer. The publisher does not provide a CD or make the source code available for download. Nor do they publish an errata. Therefore upon rating I took off 1 star for no source code and 1 star for no errata. Maybe by the time you're reading this they will make it available. If so I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Size doesn't matter
Review: I gave three starts to this book as an encouragement to authors to write books that make use of the Visual Studio (VS) Net
environment. There are still relatively few ASP.NET books that do so. Visual Studio is a proprietary environment but so is
ASP.NET. So it doesn't really make much sense to type in the code using Notepad or even Web Matrix because
you would lose the advantage of Intellisense which can probably trap 80% of the mistakes made by newbies. The book is easy to read and follow. I have several ASP.NET books. This is the only one that I have read cover to cover.
But it may be too wordy for some people or too detailed for others with many "drag this and drop that"
type instructions that may be annoying for those who hate this. The bulk of the book provides an introduction of how to add SQL server database connectivity to ASP.NET web pages.
There is very little in this book that someone couldn't find somewhere on the web. However, the price is modest. Much of the material and examples were extracted from the author's larger"Unleashed" book. Code listings are provided in both VB and C#. There are also a number of examples showing how to retrieve data from SQL using the ASP.NET database controls.
However, there is no CD or web site where you can download or copy the code. Luckily, there are very few typos. Beware that you will not find much information "on creating ASP.NET Web applications" as is stated in the introduction.
The only item that remotely resembles an application is found on p. 418 and that consists of a simple login web page.
The rest are snippet demo items on how to populate a database control. In fact, much of the coding in the book creates output that doesn't look much better than the static HTML 101 equivalents.
Check out any recent Dreamweaver or Flash book and you'll see the difference. In fact, don't toss out yet your old ASP and Visual Interdev
books because they may be still be useful until better ASP.NET books appear on the market that deal among other things with the
following topics: - how to pass information from one web page to another (especially using the request object)
- how to design pages for W3C web accessibility for disabled persons viz section 501 rules (style sheets rather than tables)
- how and where to use client side code. There is no "code behind" for client side (there is virtually no discussion here but it is an important topic e.g. code to create
printer friendly pages). In fact, according to this book there still seem to be quite a few places where one must manually add inline server side code or tags.
- ASP.NET design and code strategies. How does one create ASP.NET pages so that a designer can easily update the graphical elements!
(Part of the problem appears to be in Visual Studio itself.
- how to create ASP.NET pages with rich graphical content with/without VS. VS has an accompanying graphical editor which is not mentioned in the book.
But that is nowhere near as well integrated as Dreamweaver and Fireworks are. However, the standard dull buttons don't cut it any more on a web page!
- multimedia management and deployment The author's much larger "Unleashed" book which I also have provides more technical details but it still falls well short of providing an integrated web page
development resource using ASP.NET and VS. Size doesn't matter!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I got this book because it received many good reviews. I was extremely disappointed when I read it. This book felt like a copy-and-paste reference. It goes through code without really explaining why you're programming it that way. Another weakness of this book is that, instead of sticking to code you've learned about, it has you program complex code that they never teach you about in this book. The real-world examples and instruction are also seriously lacking. Overall, I would urge you not to get this book, beginner or not. I went through the entire thing and still feel like I didn't learn anything.
Rating:
Summary: Hands Down Best ASP.NET with Visual Studio Book
Review: I've gone through three "Professional" top selling ASP.NET books and everyone seems to ignore Visual Studio.Net but really who programs without VS.NET???? This is the first one that explains differences when using VS and it's ASP.NET coverage is on par or better than other books by Wrox, Sams, and especially better than O'Reilly. I highly recommend it if you're doing an ASP.NET web application.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, recognition of Visual Studio's importance in .Net
Review: Most of the books on .Net development stay away from Visual Studio.Net as if it were the plague, a creation of an "evil empire", or because of some variation on the "real programmers use Notepad" idea. Developers of that mentality please don't read this book because I want you to stay in that non-competitive hole you have dug for yourself. I have been working with ASP.Net and Visual Studio.Net since beta 1 and quickly realized the need for and the advantages of using this IDE. The learning curve to use Visual Studio.Net effectively has been a long, fairly steep climb mostly because of the lack of any talented technical author(s) willing to take on the challenge of clearly documenting this comprehensive (and need I say complex?) design environment. Steve, thank you for taking it on and doing such a great job. You really won't believe how much easier and faster database driven Web applications can be developed once you learn VS.Net. The control over the presentation (learn to use "auto format" and "style builder" for DataGrid "whatifs" and you'll be hooked), let alone the Server Explorer in either of the two Enterprise editions (which among other things can give give you the functionality of SQL Server's Enterprise Manager and Query Analyzer rolled into one) just nails it! You never have to leave VS.Net and that is something you have to experience to truly appreciate. Steve gets all this out to you and more in an easy to read manner. His bio in his books say he was a Ph.d candidate in Linguistics and Philosophy at M.I.T. before he got hooked on the Web. The quality and clarity of his writing certainly reflects and is a tribute to this high level of education. I'll bet his mom's happy about it too. There is one bug in VS.Net that Steve didn't cover in this book that everyone should know about and MICROSOFT SHOULD FIX!!! They have at least acknowledged it in Knowledge Base Article 313899 (search for it using kbbug KB313899). What happens is that sometimes after you run debug on your project the properties window no longer responds and you have to restart VS.Net to get it back. You can still save your work but it is annoying. Anyway, Stephen Walther's book "ASP.Net Kick Start" will do just that, kick your development into a higher gear. Did I say the man can write? Also buy his other book "ASP.Net Unleashed" if you want the best one-two ASP.Net punch available. Hey Steve, when are you going to offer "Unleashed" in a C# version? "Kick Start" gives all its examples in both C# and VB.Net so I know you can do it. Let me know when you do and I'll trade you my VB.Net version!
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent book. Beats all others hands down.
Review: There is a huge glut of ASP.NET books out there, but none with a Visual Studio.Net focus. . . . unless you count the convoluted study/certification guide from MS Press. In 3 hours I had done more with Visual Studio.Net than I had in any other book-to-date. I think the first reviewer's comments said it best. This book rules! I would recommend this book to ANYONE needing to get into the nitty gritty of ASP.NET with VS.NET.
Rating:
Summary: Solid starting point
Review: This book does exactly what it says - gives a fast paced intro to asp.net. It's very readable and offers code samples in both c# and vb.net.
I'm almost done with it and have just two issues:
1. Weak summary. The summaries are basically a short paragraph restating the purpose of the chapter. There are no review questions or any other way to gauge your understanding level.
2. Reliance on "drag and drop". Data objects are almost exclusively accessed by dragging them onto the designer surface and letting vs.net write the code. It wouldn't have taken much longer to type out the ado.net code manually (something I started doing on my own about half way through) and the repetition would have been very beneficial, not to mention the fact that this method isn't very practical in the real applications.
Coming down off of the soapbox, this is a very useful book that lets you dive right in and gain confidence quickly.
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