web.config

ASP.NET 2.0: A Developer's Notebook
$29.95
This is a well-written, easy-to-use book hitting the main points of ASP.NET 2.0. I've never read it cover-to-cover, but have gotten great use from it as a reference manual when I need to quickly figure out how to do something new in ASP.NET 2.0.

The book's laid out in a clear fashion and has a solid index, so it's easy to find the material you need to solve a problem. Each "lab" in the book is task-oriented, so you'll find things like "Create a Master Page for Your Site" which details the steps necessary to accomplish the task. Sections are nicely done and full of tips and tricks, plus there are plenty of short sidebars noting smaller bits of interest such as content pages being limited to having only one master page.

I've found the breadth of coverage quite nice. The author hits everything from Master Pages/Site Navigation to Security to Profiles. There's also a nice section on Performance which talks about site precompilation and caching. (I even nabbed one of the author's labs for one of my talks on .NET -- with attribution, of course.)

The book's very nicely done. It's concise and clear, and I like its style, both content and visual. Some folks might complain about the examples all being in Visual Basic 2005, but as Dr. Phil might say, "Build a bridge and get over it." The labs give you more than enough detail to understand how you need to use the Framework to accomplish tasks, so the particular language used shouldn't be such an issue.

Advanced ASP.NET developers probably won't get a lot out of this unless they're completely new to 2.0, but beginning and intermediate developers should find the book very helpful.

So far this book's been very useful.

Fedora Linux
$39.99
Just to add what the others have said -- this book is very, very well written. I've read (or tried to read) several Linux "get up to speed" books on specific distributions and have found that most either insult your intelligence with detailed steps describing very simple procedures -- or they completely gloss over difficult subjects. (Often they do both in the same chapter.) Chris Tyler seems to have found the perfect middle ground in "Fedora Linux." It's easy to read, well formatted and very informative. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn, or better use Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat or any of the Red Hat based distributions. Once the book has been read through, I think you'll find it to be an excellent reference as well. Great textbook, highly recommended.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) Introduction - Instructor-based Video Training
$79.00
Interactive Instructor-Based Extensible Markup Language (XML) Introduction Video Training Course on DVD-ROM. Computer Based Training (CBT) and Video Based Training (VBT) have emerged as the premier training tools in recent years. KeyStone Self-Paced CBT/VBT courses are known for their high quality in-depth content. Compared to traditional training methods, KeyStone courses cost less and users can learn faster while taking advantage of some of the best trainers in the industry. They are easy to use, comfortable to follow, perfect for training at the office, on the road, or at home.