Rating: 
Summary: Not sufficient for the exam
Review: This book is not sufficent for taking 70-306, so many topics are not covered. Dont trust this and go to the exam with only this.
Rating:
Summary: OK as an overview of what to study
Review: This book was ok from a stand point of giving you a high-level overview of the main subject areas covered by the test. However, it does not go into enough detail on most concepts and doesn't provide any references for the reading to do further reasearch.Also, I found the mix of VB.net and C# examples to be distracting. You have to pre-read each section to see if it applies to the test that you're studying for and then skip over the sections that are not relevent. However on the positive side, the book is an excellent comparison of the language difference between VB.net and C#. My other complaint about this book is the test prep software that comes with the book. It tries to simulate the actual exam to the point where it doesn't give you any options for how many questions to ask and it doesn't tell you which questions you got wrong. Thus you cannot use the practice exams to identify areas that you need more time studying. If you buy this book, definately suppliment your studies with actual practice, reading the MSDN Docs, and purchase some 3rd party test prep software.
Rating: 
Summary: OK for core info, not enough to pass the exam
Review: This book was selected by others to be the basis of a VB.NET study group which I led for about 3 months. Although the VB information was generally accurate, many of the examples were difficult to follow and illustrate to our group. Based on my experience from the VB 6 exams, I felt this book left too much detail out for someone to pass the certification exam without substantial use of additional references. For those areas which I lead our study group, I pulled in additional information from other sources. Although I haven't taken the Microsoft 70-306 exam yet, I did some practice with the Transcender exams after extensively studying this book - there were substantial areas in the practice exams not covered by the book. As an introductory book on Windows based .NET, it's OK especially considering that both VB and C# are covered if you want an introduction to both languages. I did not attempt to learn the C# part of the course, so I can't speak to the comments made in the reviews by others about errors in the C# code due to cutting and pasting from the VB. For those wanting to study for and pass the 70-306 exam with the fewest number of books to read, you'd better pass on this one.
Rating:
Summary: OK for core info, not enough to pass the exam
Review: This book was selected by others to be the basis of a VB.NET study group which I led for about 3 months. Although the VB information was generally accurate, many of the examples were difficult to follow and illustrate to our group. Based on my experience from the VB 6 exams, I felt this book left too much detail out for someone to pass the certification exam without substantial use of additional references. For those areas which I lead our study group, I pulled in additional information from other sources. Although I haven't taken the Microsoft 70-306 exam yet, I did some practice with the Transcender exams after extensively studying this book - there were substantial areas in the practice exams not covered by the book. As an introductory book on Windows based .NET, it's OK especially considering that both VB and C# are covered if you want an introduction to both languages. I did not attempt to learn the C# part of the course, so I can't speak to the comments made in the reviews by others about errors in the C# code due to cutting and pasting from the VB. For those wanting to study for and pass the 70-306 exam with the fewest number of books to read, you'd better pass on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book for Developers using VS .NET
Review: This is a great book for learning windows forms and VisualStudio.Net. The topics are taught in a concise and clear manner. The labs are well designed. It shows the author(s) has rich experiences on using VS.NET. Not like other .net books(using .net SDK) on the markets, this book teaches you how to get the job done in the RIGHT way. After working on a couple of chapters with the lab, my productivity increased! I wrote a widows form application in 40 minutes for a client that would take me at least 2 hours if I used VS6.0 and MFC. I found it is not only a good test preparation book but also a good reference for using VS.NET (MSDN is too huge, it is not easy to find the usage for VS.NET.). Highly recommend for developers who want to use .net technology in their job.
Rating:
Summary: Great start
Review: This is a greate book not only to study for the test with, but also a greate intro to Windows programming for those new to .Net. This book alone will not get you through the test, but it will get you going down the road. My only complaint is that the practice test are pretty limited.
Rating: 
Summary: Good exam coverage
Review: This is a training guide - it does exactly what it says on the cover. It is not a full technical reference and it is not an exam cram; some of the reviews here do not accept this book's basic aim. For under ($$$) you get a hardback book, a CD with decent exam questions on it (not like some of the rubbish I've seen), and a trial copy of Visual Studio to work with; a pretty reasonable price all in all. If you are using this book to help pass the exam then you need to be aware that the sections on debugging and deployment are not sufficiently detailed enough and you will need to access supplemental information in these areas (hence 4 stars not 5). You do need to spend a lot of time using visual studio between chapters to cement the information in your mind; but the basic training in the book is sound. I sat the exam and passed first time by using this book and playing around with the development environment; more importantly it gave me a good grounding in all of the key areas. This, I think, says it all ...
Rating:
Summary: A book specifically for covering test objectives, no more
Review: This is a very average book that perhaps covers all objectives of the test, but it does no more. The book falls really short in terms of real world examples. The snippets in the book are all one-liners, out of context and leave more questions than answers. A specific example (and the most annoying one) of a section with such one-liner snippets is the one related to the use of Security classes in the .NET framework. Even the labs are all trivial examples which you'll never use in real life. The book also doesn't organize the material too well. The topics and terminology that would be covered in later chapters are freely used in earlier chapters. You can probably pass the test using this book, but if you don't already know VB.NET and ADO.NET, it would take an inordinate amount of effort to understand the stuff using this book. I would certainly recommend reading some other book or articles on the web to supplement the material given in this book (or simply to make more sense of material given in this book). On the positive side, this book does cover all topics on the test, even if badly. The test on the companion CD, however, is nothing like the actual test.
All in all, this book lays out the raw facts, but doesn't put them all together to make a cohesive, understandable picture of software development using the .NET platform.
Rating:
Summary: Typical of Certification Books
Review: This is a very decent overview of Windows-based programming in .NET. It's dry and boring in the typical certification-book style. The real question is, "Is it a great book for passing the certification exams?" I'll let you know after I take the tests myself. On that note, one of my major criticisms of this book is the practice exam on the included CD. It does a poor job of covering the specific skills that are measured on the Windows-based certification exams, and, worst of all, only tells you your total score. The practice test doesn't tell you which specific questions you missed, nor does it give you an explanation of the correct answer. Totally useless.
Rating:
Summary: Typical of Certification Books
Review: This is a very decent overview of Windows-based programming in .NET. It's dry and boring in the typical certification-book style. The real question is, "Is it a great book for passing the certification exams?" I'll let you know after I take the tests myself. On that note, one of my major criticisms of this book is the practice exam on the included CD. It does a poor job of covering the specific skills that are measured on the Windows-based certification exams, and, worst of all, only tells you your total score. The practice test doesn't tell you which specific questions you missed, nor does it give you an explanation of the correct answer. Totally useless.
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