certifications

I'm not an industry insider and have no involvement in the making of this book, my aim was to understand the contents of the curriculum for the 70-306 exam and obviously to pass (which I did, first time)
This is a great book, it's exceptionally well structured, it's full of thorough and well thought-out exercises. Every single step is detailed (nothing is omitted) and you will learn much, not least, how to use Visual Studio properly.

This book has very good review questions and a sample exam at the back which are really useful in getting you to think in a '.Net way' do not skip these they are important.

If you wish to understand .Net windows forms programming to a sufficient degree to pass the 70-306 you will not regret investing the time in reading this book. One reviewer reviewed the wrong book (he/she reviewed the one on Asp.net) another said that this was very poor and disappointing, an opinion which in my view is unsustainable particularly since he gives no fair explanation of why he was driven to give a damning verdict.
I emailed the author a couple of times about some things and he was very quick and generous in his replies. There are errors but there is an errata and any programmer who is aiming to become a .Net MCSD will be able to figure out why something isn't compiling.
I can safely and happily recommend this book to anyone who is serious. I supplemented reading it with the Transcender exam simulations and I found them extremely helpful too.

I'm not an industry insider and have no involvement in the making of this book, my aim was to understand the contents of the curriculum for the 70-306 exam and obviously to pass (which I did, first time)
This is a great book, it's exceptionally well structured, it's full of thorough and well thought-out exercises. Every single step is detailed (nothing is omitted) and you will learn much, not least, how to use Visual Studio properly.

This book has very good review questions and a sample exam at the back which are really useful in getting you to think in a '.Net way' do not skip these they are important.

If you wish to understand .Net windows forms programming to a sufficient degree to pass the 70-306 you will not regret investing the time in reading this book. One reviewer reviewed the wrong book (he/she reviewed the one on Asp.net) another said that this was very poor and disappointing, an opinion which in my view is unsustainable particularly since he gives no fair explanation of why he was driven to give a damning verdict.
I emailed the author a couple of times about some things and he was very quick and generous in his replies. There are errors but there is an errata and any programmer who is aiming to become a .Net MCSD will be able to figure out why something isn't compiling.
I can safely and happily recommend this book to anyone who is serious. I supplemented reading it with the Transcender exam simulations and I found them extremely helpful too.

I used this book to prepare for the VB.Net (70-306) Certification exam and I think it's a good one.

The book gives you a great roadmap to Certification--showing you (with almost perfect accuracy) what's on the exam and giving you just enough information to properly prepare.

Don't use this book to learn VB.Net--that's not what it's for. But use it, in conjunction with a good study group (such as one of mine) and an exam simulator such as Transcender, to understand the breadth of knowledge required to pass the exam.

The book breaks the major objectives of the exam into sections that it then deals with chapter by chapter. The author's knowledge is obvious--and what I really liked about the book is that he doesn't waste a lot of time trying to impress you with hard to follow code examples.

The code examples, for the most part, are short and sweet---and he follows these up with multiple Step-By-Step exercises interspersed throughout the chapter, and several follow up exercises to complete on your own. In addition, each chapter has a Self Test section that has some excellent exam type questions to further test your knowledge.

As I indicated, I used this book to successfully prepare for the exam---it's the best one on the market that I've seen.

Of course, every book has some minor glitches--I've compiled a list of errata and posted it on my website here

http://www.johnsmiley.com/mybooks/0789728192/errata.htm

John Smiley