Introducing Visual Basic 2008 and the .NET Platform.- The Philosophy of .NET.- Building Visual Basic 2008 Applications.- Core VB Programming Constructs.- VB 2008 Programming Constructs, Part I.- VB 2008 Programming Constructs, Part II.- Designing Encapsulated Class Types.- Understanding Inheritance and Polymorphism.- Understanding Structured Exception Handling.- Understanding Object Lifetime.- Advanced VB Programming Constructs.- Working with Interface Types.- Collections, Generics, and Nullable Data Types.- Delegates, Events, and Lambdas.- Operator Overloading and Custom Conversion Routines.- VB 2008-Specific Language Features.- An Introduction to LINQ.- Programming with .NET Assemblies.- Introducing .NET Assemblies.- Type Reflection, Late Binding, and Attribute-Based Programming.- Processes, AppDomains, and Object Contexts.- Building Multithreaded Applications.- .NET Interoperability Assemblies.- Introducing the .NET Base Class Libraries.- File and Directory Manipulation.- Introducing Object Serialization.- ADO.NET Part I: The Connected Layer.- ADO.NET Part II: The Disconnected Layer.- Programming with the LINQ APIs.- Introducing Windows Communication Foundation.- Introducing Windows Workflow Foundation.- Desktop Applications with Windows Forms.- Introducing Windows Forms.- Rendering Graphical Data with GDI+.- Programming with Windows Forms Controls.- Desktop Applications with WPF.- Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation and XAML.- Programming with WPF Controls.- WPF 2D Graphical Rendering, Resources, and Themes.- Building Web Applications with ASP.NET.- Building ASP.NET Web Pages.- ASP.NET Web Controls, Themes, and Master Pages.- ASP.NET State Management Techniques.