From Dan Mabbutt,
Your Guide to Visual Basic.
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Welcome to the the About Visual Basic Complete Course in VB.NET! I'm Dan Mabbutt, About Visual Basic site guide and your instructor for the course. Thanks for signing up.

This is the flagship course for the site and consists of 22 additional lessons delivered to your email inbox and web browser each week. I also invite you to visit our About Visual Basic Forumto discuss the course, or just to browse the other questions and answers that you can find there. There is a section in the Forum devoted just to this particular course that you can find at The Complete Course Forum.

Please keep these tips in mind!

1. If you change your email address after the course starts, the lessons won't get to you!
2. If you're using software that blocks email until a "real person" sends it, the lessons won't get to you!

Also, if you fail to receive a lesson, or if you just want to go back and have a lesson sent to you again for any reason, just go the bottom of the email for any week and click on the link for 'lost lessons' and select the lesson that you would like to have sent again!

About the MS Press Learning Edition

In addition to the email introductions, web page 'class room lectures' and help in the About Visual Basic Forum, the course is also based on a really great text:
The Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Learning Edition.

As the signup promised, this course is absolutely free. But to get the most out of this course, you will need to have these 'course materials':

Microsoft Press Learning Edition (ISBN: 0735619069)

The "Learning Edition" includes both a book and VB.NET Standard. So if you have both of these items already, you're good to go:

Visual Studio 2003 or VB.NET 2003

and

Microsoft Press book "Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Step By Step 2003" by Michael Halvorson (ISBN: 0735619050)

If you have the previous version: VB.NET 1.0 or "Microsoft Visual Basic .NET Step By Step 2003" (ISBN: 0735613745), that's OK. There's not much difference and you will get nearly all of the benefit with the previous version as well.

Although these email newsletters will introduce the information in the text and add to the explanations you find there, you'll discover that without the textbook, it will be difficult to understand and benefit from the course. You're not required to get the text, but it's a really, really good idea. And, just to put your mind at ease, About Visual Basic and I don't get a dime from Microsoft for using this text. I picked it out because I decided it was the best way for you to learn VB.NET - not because I'm getting paid to recommend it.

Be sure to read through the Introduction in the text. This one is better than most with a lot of good guidance.

IMHO - Microsoft Press Books

There are bad and good things about an "official" Microsoft Press book. The bad is that you often only get the Microsoft "official" point of view. But the good is that you get the Microsoft "official" point of view. In their own books, Microsoft tends to "put the best possible spin on things".

But there is no doubt that the best sourceof help and information about Microsoft products is Microsoft. And one of the best ways to learn how to find things in their vast storehouse of knowledge (mainly, MSDN) is to learn their language. It's not always the same as an independent author's way of describing things. A Microsoft Press book helps you do that.

The Introduction includes a suggestion about what parts of the book you should read depending on your goals and background. We're going to go through ALL parts. Even if you have experience with VB.NET, I recommend that you do the same. If you're a practiced VB.NET programmer, it shouldn't take you a lot of time and I'll bet that no matter how much experience you have, you'll still learn. I did!

And notice that every suggestion set for using the book starts with the instruction, " Install the practice files ... ". So ... Install the practice files! Now. Do it.

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Now that the practice files have been installed, you should also notice the searchable copy of the text that is available with the CD. Major benefit! And the sample programs are examples that you can pirate and rob for years to come for your own projects when you need similar functions. You can see a list of them starting on page xix.

Another reason that I selected the Microsoft VB.NET Learning Edition for the course is that it's easily the best and cheapest way to get Visual Basic .NET. I've recommended it for people who are thinking about buying VB.NET for years now. On the next page, you'll see the article from the regular About Visual Basic site that reviews the Learning Edition. After reading the article, make sure you return to this lesson and read the rest of the pages! Get VB.NET (still) Cheap!