Product Description: The comprehensive guide to Visual Basic 2012Microsoft Visual Basic (VB) is the most popular programming language in the world, with millions of lines of code used in businesses and applications of all types and sizes. In this edition of the bestselling Wrox guide, Visual Basic expert Rod Stephens offers novice and experienced developers a comprehensive tutorial and reference to Visual Basic 2012...read more

Product Description: Grasp the basic concepts that drive all Microsoft® .NET-based languages—and prepare yourself to learn .NET programming. If you have absolutely no previous experience, no problem—simply start here! This ebook provides the foundation for all other ...read more

Product Description: Unique book-and-DVD package for novice Visual Basic programmersStart from scratch, and even if you don?t know a thing about Visual Basic, you soon will with this thorough introduction to Visual Basic programming. Using easy-to-follow lessons and step-by-step instruction, this practical book teaches you concepts and hands-on techniques, then reinforces your learning with video screencasts and supplemental materials...read more

Visual Basic expert Rod Stephens shows you how to leverage the latest features of VB 2010Microsoft Visual Basic (VB) is the most popular programming language in the world, with millions of lines of code used in businesses and applications of all types and sizes. The new release of Visual Basic 2010 is tightly integrated with the Windows operating system and the .NET programming environment. Renowned VB authority Rod Stephens provides a comprehensive guide to Visual Basic programming, including the latest enhancements to the VB language and programming environment with Visual Studio 2010 The tutorial is packed with detailed and practical code examples that show readers how to master all of the features of VB.Visual Basic authority Rod Stephens presents a must-have resource on Visual Basic, the most popular programming language in the wordFully covers the newest features of Visual Basic 2010, such as array literals and initializers, collection initializers, implicit line continuation, Lambda expressions, and moreFeatures extensively revised and tested code to ensure compliance with the latest releaseWith this essential resource, you'll be able to quickly review the details of important programming, objects, properties, methods, and events.Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Build effective user interfaces with Windows Presentation FoundationWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is included with the Windows operating system and provides a programming model for building applications that provide a clear separation between the UI and business logic. Written by a leading expert on Microsoft graphics programming, this richly illustrated book provides an introduction to WPF development and explains fundamental WPF concepts.Packed with helpful examples, this reference progresses through a range of topics that gradually increase in their complexity. You’ll quickly start building applications while you learn how to use both Expression Blend and Visual Studio to build UIs. In addition, the book addresses the needs of programmer who write the code behind the UI and shows you how operations can be performed using both XAML and C#.Topics Covered:Overview of WPFWPF in Visual StudioExpression BlendCommon PropertiesContent ControlsLayout ControlsUser Interaction ControlsTwo-Dimensional Drawing ControlsPropertiesPens and BrushesEvents and Code-BehindResourcesStyles and Property TriggersEvent Triggers and AnimationTemplatesThemes and SkinsPrintingData BindingCommandingTransformations and EffectsDocumentsNavigation-Based ApplicationsThree-Dimensional DrawingSilverlightEven if you only have a minimal amount of experience, by the end of the book, you will be able to build dynamic and responsive user interfaces with WPF.Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Product Description: A unique book-and-DVD package from preeminent programming instructor Rod StephensVisual C# has become a leading programming language, resulting in greater career opportunities for Visual C# programmers. This Wrox guide literally shows novice programmers how to program in C# with Microsoft Visual Studio, using both written and visual instruction...read more

This book is intended for IT professionals and students who want to learn how to design, analyze, and understand databases. The material will benefit those who want a better high-level understanding of databases such as proposal managers, architects, project managers, and even customers. The material will also benefit those who will actually design, build, and work with databases such as database designers, database administrators, and programmers. In many projects, these roles overlap so the same person may be responsible for working on the proposal, managing part of the project, and designing and creating the database.This book is aimed at IT professionals and students of all experience levels. It does not assume that you have any previous experience with databases or programs that use them. It doesn’t even assume that you have experience with computers. All you really need is a willingness and desire to learn.This book explains database design. It tells how to plan a database’s structure so the database will be robust, resistant to errors, and flexible enough to accommodate a reasonable amount of future change. It explains how to discover database requirements, build data models to study data needs, and refine those models to improve the database’s effectiveness.The book solidifies these concepts by working through a detailed example that designs a realistic database. Later chapters explain how to actually build databases using two common database products: Access 2007 and MySQL.The book finishes by describing some of the topics you need to understand to keep a database running effectively such as database maintenance and security.This book explains database design. It tells how to determine what should go in a database and how the database should be structured to give the best results.This book does not focus on actually creating the database. The details of database construction are different for different database tools so, to remain as generally as useful as possible, this book doesn’t concentrate on any particular database system. You can apply the techniques described here equally to whatever database tool you use whether it’s Access, SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, or some other database product.Most database products include free editions that you can use for smaller projects. For example, SQL Server Express Edition, Oracle Express Edition, and MySQL Community Server are all free.To remain database neutral, the book does not assume you are using a particular database so you don’t need any particular software or hardware. To work through the Exercises, all you really need is a pencil and some paper. You are welcome to type solutions into your computer if you like but you may actually find working with pencil and paper easier than using a graphical design tool to draw pictures, at least until you are comfortable with database design and are ready to pick a computerized design tool.“Goals of Effective Database Design,” explains the reasons why people and organizations use databases. It explains a database’s purpose and conditions that it must satisfy to be useful. This also describes the basic ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) and CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) features that any good database should have. It explains in high-level general terms what makes a good database and what makes a bad database.“Database Types,” explains some of the different types of databases that you might decide to use. These include flat files, spreadsheets, hierarchical databases (XML), object databases, and relational databases. The relational database is one of the most powerful and most commonly used forms of database so it is the focus of this book, but it is important to realize that there are alternatives that may be more appropriate under certain circumstances. This gives some tips on deciding which kind of database might be best for a particular project.“Relational Database Fundamentals,” explains basic relational database concepts such as tables, rows, and columns. It explains the common usage of relational database terms in addition to the more technical terms that are sometimes used by database theorists. It describes different kinds of constraints that databases use to guarantee that the data is stored safely and consistently.“Understanding User Needs,” explains how to learn about the users’ needs and gather user requirements. It tells how to study the users’ current operations, existing databases (if any), and desired improvements. It describes common questions that you can ask to learn about users’ operations, desires, and needs, and how to build the results into requirements documents and specifications. This explains what use cases are and tells how to use them and the requirements to guide database design and to measure success.“Translating User Needs into Data Models,” introduces data modeling. It explains how to translate the user’s conceptual model and the requirements into other more precise models that define the database design rigorously. This describes several database modeling techniques including user-interface models, semantic object models, entity-relationship diagrams, and relational models.“Extracting Business Rules,” explains how a database can handle business rules. It explains what business rules are, how they differ from database structure requirements, and how you can identify business rules. This explains the benefits of separating business rules from the database structure and tells how achieve that separation.“Normalizing Data,” explains one of the biggest tools in database design: normalization. Normalization techniques allow you to restructure a database to increase its flexibility and make it more robust. This explains the various forms of normalization, emphasizing the stages that are most common and important: first, second, and third normal forms (1NF, 2NF, and 3NF). It explains how each of these kinds of normalization helps prevent errors and tells why it is sometimes better to leave a database slightly less normalized to improve performance.“Designing Databases to Support Software Applications,” explains how databases fit into the larger context of application design and lifecycle. This explains how later development depends on the underlying database design. It discusses multi-tier architectures that can help decouple the application and database design so there can be at least some changes to either without requiring changes to the other.“Common Design Patterns,” explains some common patterns that are useful in many applications. Some of these techniques include implementing various kinds of relationships among objects, storing hierarchical and network data, recording temporal data, and logging and locking.“Common Design Pitfalls,” explains some common design mistakes that occur in database development. It describes problems that can arise from insufficient planning, incorrect normalization, and obsession with ID fields and performance.“User Needs and Requirements,” walks through the steps required to analyze the users’ problem, define requirements, and create use cases. It describes interviews with fictitious customers that are used to identify the application’s needs and translate them into database requirements.“Building a Data Model,” translates the requirements gathered in the previous into a series of data models that precisely define the database’s structure. This builds user-interface models, entity-relationship diagrams, semantic object models, and relational models to refine the database’s initial design. The final relational models match the structure of a relational database fairly closely so they are easy to implement.“Extracting Business Rules,” identifies the business rules embedded in the relational model. It shows how to extract those rules in order to separate them logically from the database’s structure. This makes the database more robust in the face of future changes to the business rules.“Normalization and Refinement,” refines the relational model by normalizing it. It walks through several versions of the database that are in different normal forms. It then selects the degree of normalization that provides a reasonable tradeoff between robust design and acceptable performance.“Microsoft Access,” explains how to build a database with Microsoft Access 2007. This explains enough to get started and to use Access to build non-trivial databases. You can use other versions of Access to work through this, although the locations of menus, buttons, and other Access features are different in different versions.“MySQL,” explains how to build a database with MySQL. This tells where to download a free version of MySQL. It explains how to use the MySQL Command Line Client as well as some useful graphical tools including MySQL Query Browser and MySQL Workbench.“Introduction to SQL,” provides an introduction to SQL (Structured Query Language). It explains how to use SQL commands to add, insert, update, and delete data. By using SQL, you can help insulate a program from the idiosyncrasies of the particular database product that it uses to store data.“Building Databases with SQL Scripts,” explains how to use SQL scripts to build a database. It explains the advantages of this technique, such as the ability to create scripts to initialize a database before performing tests. It also explains some of the restrictions on this method, such as the fact that the user must create and delete tables in specific orders to satisfy table relationships.“Database Maintenance,” describes some of the database maintenance issues that are part of any database application. Though performing and restoring ba...

Product Description: Learn the basics of Visual Basic 2005 programming and specific language features, and prepare to take your applications to the next level. This box set reveals all of Visual Basic 2005’s unmatched tools for programming, debugging, and refactoring code and shares proven techniques for developing even the most complex Visual Basic applications...read more