Learning ADO.NET

I had recently tried to write a program which accessed a database and found that I was unfamiliar with ADO.NET which C# uses. Deciding to learn, I started out with Sams Teach Yourself ADO.NET in 21 Days, but found that it was targeted to Visual Studio 2002 and .Net 1.1 and totally missed the current state of Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 and .Net 2.0 and above. Deciding to try again with another book, I'm currently working through Microsoft® ADO.NET 2.0 Step by Step. I have also liked the idea of using SQLite as the database engine since it is totally self contained, so I converted the sample database and have been working through every exercise using System.Data.SQLite instead of Microsoft's SQL Server.

Get the SQLite version of the example database included in the ADONETSBS.exe Sample Files here:
AdoStepByStep.sqlite

Have fun

Software on my computer

Since I'm going to re-format my computer, I figured it would be a good time to list the software on my computers.

General

• Windows 7 ($)
• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Adobe Flash Player 10
• Google Gears
  
• HuluDesktop
  
• Java 6
• Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 ($)
• Microsoft Visio 2007 ($)
  
• Microsoft Silverlight
• Mozilla Firefox 3.5
  (addons: Xmarks, Image Zoom, Download Statusbar, Adblock Plus, DownThemAll!, FireFTP, FoxyProxy, Tab Mix Plus)
• Quicken Premier 2009 ($)
  

Programming

• AnkhSVN
  
• Consolas Font Family
  
• Visual Studio 2008 Team Edition ($)
• EQATEC Profiler
  
• Expresso
  
• Java ME SDK
• Java SE Dev Kit
• JetBrains ReSharper 4.5 ($)
• Agent Smith for ReSharper
  
• Microsoft StyleCop
• Microsoft StyleCop for ReSharper 4.5
• MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008 SP1
• NUnit
• NUnit for Visual Studio
  
• Sun Java Wireless Toolkit 2.5.2 for CLDC
• TortoiseSVN (64 bit and 32 bit both installed)
• UltraEdit 15 ($)
• Eclipse with BlackBerry Plugin
  

Media

• Media Player Classic Home Cinema
  
• My Channel Logos for 7WM
  

Drivers (Laptop)

• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver
• MultiTouch Driver *
• Wacom Enhanced Graphics Driver *
  
• Pen Tablet
• ThinkPad Modem
• ThinkPad Power Management Driver
• ThinkPad Power Manager
• ThinkPad Tablet Button *
  
• ThinkPad TrackPoint Driver
• ThinkVantage Active Protection System *
  
• ThinkVantage Fingerprint Software

Other

• ArtRage 2 Starter Edition
  
• BabySmash!
  
• BlackBerry Desktop Software
  
• Citrix XenApp Web Plugin
  
• DivX Codec (free/$ for encoder)
• Dr. DivX 2.0 OSS
  
• Logitech Harmony Remote Software
• Mobipocket Creator 4.2
• Mobipocket Reader 6.2
• MuseScore
• PowerToys for Tablet PC
• Paint.NET
  
• PeaZip
• PSPad editor
• Skype
• DirectX End-user Runtimes
  
• Synthesia
• TomTom HOME
• Virtual Windows XP
• VirtualCloneDrive
• VSO Image Resizer
• FileSync (repackaged as a zip file, since the installer doesn't work with Windows 7)