For those of you who were at MIX this week, you would have received a nice free sample copy of my "Introducing Silverlight 2: First Look" book. This sample has 3 chapters from the finished book, giving you a tour of XAML, as well as an introduction to building Silverlight applications and controls using Visual Studio. Here's a link to the full book -- and I'm aiming for a late May, early June release.

Also this week, my newest APress book was released. It's called Beginning Web Development, Silverlight and ASP.NET AJAX From Novice to Professional and is available now.

I'm really proud of this book, and think you'll really enjoy it. I've tried to take a slightly different approach in it, and its aim is to take you on a tour of the myriad of Web technologies that are out there, giving you a really firm grounding in everything that you can do to build Web applications with Microsoft technology.

It's not an in depth reference on any one technology, more a smorgasbord of everything that you need to know to get started on the road of being a super-effective professional. You won't become a CardSpace uber-expert after reading this book, but you will gain enough hands-on, real-world experience to have a grasp on the technology and start using it for your site. Part One of the book is aimed at someone who isn't fully versed in the Web, taking them from the birth of the web through static HTML, through generation of HTML from a smart server, and the evolution of ASP.NET as a result. Part Two then takes us into the Next generation technologies: WPF, WCF, Workflow, Cardspace, AJAX, ASP.NET AJAX and finally Silverlight. By the time you're done, you'll be animating WPF, consuming WCF services, building casual games in Silverlight, extending JavaScript with your own objects...what's not to love? :)

I've been heads-down on MIX and other important Silverlight activities for the past few months so no posting...I'll make it up to you with a C# DeepZoom tutorial very very soon -- watch this space!

Here's the Chapter Breakdown:

PART ONE: Understanding and Building Web Applications

1. Introduction to Web Development
1. The Internet and the Birth of the Web
2. Going beyond the Static Web
3. The Arrival of ASP.NET
2. Basics of Web Development with ASP.NET
1. Using Visual Studio
2. Architecture of ASP.NET
3. Web Forms with ASP.NET
1. Understanding Page Processing
2. Looking at Web Forms
3. Processing Web Forms
4. Pages and Controls
5. The Page Object
4. Data Binding with ASP.NET
1. What is ADO.NET
2. SQL Server 2005
3. Using ADO.NET to build Data-Driven Applications
4. Data Binding with Server Controls
5. ASP.NET Web Services
1. Web Services Architecture
2. Building a Web Service
3. Creating a Service CLient
6. Deploying your Web Site
1. IIS and what it does
2. Manually deploying Applications

PART TWO: Next Generation Technologies for Web Development

1. .NET 3: Windows Communication Foundation
1. WCF and Productivity
2. WCF and Interoperability with WS-*
3. WCF and Service Orientation
4. Programming WCF
2. .NET 3: Windows Presentation Foundation
1. XAML
2. Expression Blend
3. Building WPF Applications with Blend and Visual Studio
3. .NET 3: Windows Workflow Foundation
1. Using WF
2. Using Visual Studio to build Workflows
3. Out-of-the-box Activities
4. Workflow and the Web
4. .NET 3: Cardspace
1. Using Cardspace
2. Creating a Web site that uses Cardspace for authentication
5. AJAX and the User Experience
1. A brief history of AJAX
2. Improving UI with AJAX
3. Build a Forward Cacheing sample with AJAX
6. AJAX Extensions for .NET
1. ASP.NET AJAX Overview
2. Getting Started with ASP.NET AJAX
3. Building AJAX Applications with ASP.NET AJAX
4. Using AJAX with Web Services (POX, REST)
7. AJAX Scripts and Services
1. Using ScriptManager
2. Partial Page Rendering
3. Using Web Services, Applicaiton Services and Profile Data from AJAX
8. JavaScript Programming with ASP.NET AJAX
1. Using Object Oriented Features (Namespaces, Inheritance, Interfaces and Reflection) in JavaScript
2. Adding type extensions to JavaScript
3. Date, Error, Number and string extensions
9. Enhancing the Web Experience with Silverlight
1. What Silverlight is and how it works
2. Programming the Silverlight control
10. Programming Silverlight with XAML and JavaScript
1. A tour of XAML
2. Using JavaScript to program Silverlight
3. Building a simple Casual Game in Silverlight