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Recommendations
Of course, the best books are the ones I co-wrote myself. That said, there are many other very
good books on my bookshelf which I highly recommend, most of which I did not contribute to.
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Programming ASP.NET 3.5
Jesse Liberty, Dan Hurwitz, Dan Maharry
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I have to put this one first, because it was my first book, and still my favorite, although it is now
in the fourth edition. And no, O'Reilly authors do not get to choose their animal. This is a great book for
getting from beginning ASP.NET programming to moderately advanced. The examples in the book are in C#, although
the VB.NET is available for download on the O'Reilly site,
and it is highlighted in the text when the two
languages differ significantly.
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O'Reilly
978-0-596-52956-7
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ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed
Stephen Walther
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Although a competitor to us, this is a great book for the working developer. My copy is well thumbed.
It covers an amazing amount of ground
with a good degree of depth. The code examples are clear and concise.
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Sams
978-0672330117
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Pro ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005
Matthew MacDonald & Mario Szpuszta
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Another worthy competitor, this edition been superceded by newer editions covering ASP.NET 3.5 and Silverlight.
However, this is the edition on my desktop which gets heavy use. In addition to all the things you would expect in an ASP.NET book,
it has terrific chapters on advanced topics such as Files and Streams, Cryptography, Custom Membership Providers,
Design-Time Support, JavaScript, and Dynamic Graphics and GDI+.
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Apress
978-1590594964
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Programming .NET Windows Applications
Jesse Liberty & Dan Hurwitz
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Books on Windows Forms are tough to come by, especially these days. Although I am biased, being the
co-author and all, this book is worth its signficant weight in gold for a desktop developer,
despite being somewhat out of date.
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O'Reilly
978-0-596-00321-0
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Programming Microsoft Windows with C#
Charles Petzold
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A classic. Very readable and very in-depth. Does not even mention Visual Studio, and barely mentions
the controls most common in applications, yet it is the indispensable reference for enabling
your application to work with images, text, the keyboard, and on and on.
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Microsoft Press
978-0-735-61370-6
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Windows Forms 2.0 Programming
Chris Sells & Michael Weinhardt
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A useful volume which fills in lots of details.
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Addison-Wesley Professional
978-0-321-26796-2
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The next three books are part of a series. I have read all three books cover to cover, many chapters many times.
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Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005:
T-SQL Querying
Itzik Ben-Gan, Lubor Kollar & Dejan Sarka
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The first chapter, Logical Query Processing, by itself is worth the price of admission. It is as though
the film is now lifted off my eyes. The chapter on Query Tuning is a close second as the most
revelatory chapter I have ever read on SQL Server.
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Microsoft Press
978-0-735-62313-9
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Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005:
T-SQL Programming
Itzik Ben-Gan, Dejan Sarka & Roger Wolter
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The companion to T-SQL Querying, this volume covers non-querying aspects such as data types, temporary tables, cursors,
views,and so on. Always, it stresses performance ramifications and how to work around them. A great, great book.
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Microsoft Press
978-0-7356-2197-8
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Inside Microsoft SQL Server 2005:
Query Tuning and Optimization
Kalen Delaney, Sunil Agarwal, Craig Freedman, Lubor Kollar, Ron Talmage & Adam Machanic
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This book looks at many of the same issues as T-SQL Querying, but from a slightly different perspective,
providing a deep understanding of what is happening under the covers.
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Microsoft Press
978-0-7356-2196-1
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Pragmatic ADO.NET
Data Access for the Internet World
Shawn Wildermuth
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A concise guide to accessing data. Very practical code samples in C#.
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Addison Wesley
978-0-201-74568-9
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Programming C# 3.0, Fifth Edition
Jesse Liberty
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A classic and definitive reference work.
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O'Reilly
978-0-596-15874-3
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HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide, Sixth Edition
Chuck Musciano & Bill Kennedy
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The title and subtitle say it all.
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O'Reilly
978-0-596-15851-4
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JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fifth Edition
David Flanagan
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Another Definitive Guide I depend on.
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O'Reilly
978-0-596-00048-0
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The Design of Everyday Things
Donald A. Norman
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You will never again look at a door handle the same way.
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Basic Books
978-0-465-06710-7
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The Non-Designer's Design Book
Robin Williams
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The design book for the rest of us, to borrow a phrase. A little goes a long way.
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Peachpit Press
978-0-321-53404-0
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Don't Make Me Think:
A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Steve Krug
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Required reading for all who work on web sites.
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New Riders Press
978-0-321-34475-5
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Notepad2
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This free, lightweight Notepad replacement from Flo's Freeware is now my go-to text editor for any flat-file work outside of Visual Studio. It is
much more usable than plain vanilla Windows notepad. Amongst its many features, it
provides syntax highlighting for C#, VB.NET, HTML, XML, SQL, and JavaScript, among other file types. It has many editing enhancements
such as block indenting and unindenting, stripping trailing blanks, removing blank lines, and on and on. It supports a number of
useful configuration options, including line numbering and word wrap. And did I mention, it's free. Try it and you will never
use Notepad again.
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free
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FinePrint
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This becomes your default printer, where at the minimum it performs as print preview on steroids. It also allows
printing jobs as 2-up, 4-up, etc., plus lots of other options. Well worthwhile both for the convenience and the
trees you save.
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$49.95
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pdfFactory
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Works with FinePrint to easily create PDF files.
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$49.95
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ExamDiff Pro
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The best and easiest diff'ing tool I have seen.
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$35
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SQL Sets
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Save and compare query results. An invaluable tool. I don't know how I ever got along without it,
although I often pined for such a tool. Now it is here.
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$149
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HyperSnap
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A very good screen capture program with reasonably good image editing.
Much lighter weight than something like PhotoShop.
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$39.95
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GoToMeeting
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Work with several people remotely, showing them your screen or seeing theirs. Allows you to
control their screen or vice versa. This WebEx competitor from Citrix is very easy to use and
will transform the way you interact with people. The monthly subscription allows you to use it
freely, at the drop of a hat. It also has very good conference calling capabilities (as
long as long distance phone charges do not apply).
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$49/month
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Pandora
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While this internet radio is not a tool, strictly speaking, it does make time at your desk
much more pleasant.
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free or $35/year
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VS.NetcodePrint
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When you really need to print out your source code, this is the Visual Studio add-in to use.
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$69
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Tabs Studio
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For the most part, I love the VS2008 UI. However, the way it handles large numbers of open files
leaves quite a bit to be desired, especially if the files have long paths and/or filenames. Then
just to make you crazy, it changes the order in which tabs are displayed, so you can never
find what you were working on just a few minutes ago. Tabs Studio, another VS add-in, fixes all that. Try it,
you'll like it.
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$34
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