Books and writing

Published in 2003, this book is a practical guide to database programming in .NET. It is pretty thorough, and the reviews have been good. I emphasize generic coding (not specific to a particular engine), and have a large number of examples with MS SQL Server, Oracle and MS Access.

Note that I had no input into the cover art for the book - Manning uses costumes from a book published in 1799. Given my interest in costuming, this should be a good fit, but I would have probably gone for something a tad more elegant. This guy is a Gonagues Cazando, a huntsman from Sri Lanka.

The book is broken into a number of sections:

ADO.NET overview - Where does ADO.NET fit in the grand scheme of Microsoft data access technologies, how it is built up, etc.
ADO.NET basics - How to set up and use ADO.NET
The DataSet - Using the disconnected data model in ADO.NET
DataBound controls - Hooking up WinForm and WebForm controls directly to data.
XML and ADO.NET - How XML interacts with ADO.NET, various XML capabilities, schemas, transforms, etc., and also a discussion on the XML features of SQL Server.
Useful extras - Various topics such as connection pooling, reading schema info from databases, interoperating with ADO Recordsets, COM+, etc.
Appendices - In-depth coverage of a number of important classes.

You can buy the book from the publisher, various book stores or directly from Amazon

There is also an on-line discussion forum where I answer questions on ADO.NET (or other programming topics).