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So you want to be a C# expert? I think I have just the book for you…

At 392 pages, this is not a long book. Jon intended this book not to be one of those ‘massive tome[s]’ that adorn the bookshelves. It’s lean and gets straight to the point, whilst keeping the writing style engaging; not an easy feat. The ‘frictionless’ code examples are so clearly explained, you can glide through them without constantly having to back track into the text.

If there is one thing that sets this book apart from the others, it is the way is it structured to take the reader from C# version 1.1 to C# 2.0 and then through to C# 3. This would be especially useful for developers who are about to embark on a C# upgrade project, and want to be sure to use all the new language features to best effect.

This is the book I’ll be reaching for to answer those hard and best practice C# questions. It‘s an excellent resource for updating your C# development skills and taking them to the next level. If you write code in C#, you should read this book. Highly recommended.

Extra material can be found at: http://csharpindepth.com/Articles.aspx. The bluffer’s guides to C# 2 and 3 are a good way to get a rough overview of some of the new features. This web site also contains notes, online resources, and downloads.

I will try to obtain a copy of the book for the user group library…

Disclosure: A review copy of this book was supplied by Manning.

I’m currently writing a short review of Jon Skeet’s excellent new book, “C# in Depth” and I came across a neat C# code formatter at the book’s accompanying web site.

Join us tomorrow at the Perth .NET Community of Practice, Thursday June 5th to hear Dave Gardner talk about ‘How to be a debugging superhero’ with Visual Studio 2008. Ever thought you should spend more time learning about the debugging features that Visual Studio has to offer? If so then this is the session for you! This entire session will be hands-on (not a single PowerPoint bullet in sight), as we see how many tips, tricks, and best practices we can jam into an hour. Amaze and delight your co-workers with your newfound skills after you are transformed into a debugging superhero*.

* Individual results may vary. The presenter makes no guarantee that you will obtain any superhuman abilities during this session.

TOPIC: How to be a debugging superhero with Dave Gardner
DATE: Thursday, June 5th, 5:30pm
VENUE: Excom, Level 2, 23 Barrack Street, Perth
COST: Free. All welcome.

Dave Gardner is a seasoned .NET developer and the Chief Software Architect at Intilecta Corporation. For the past decade and a bit, Dave has worked as a solutions architect, consultant, and developer, and provided expertise to organisations in Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia. Dave is a co-author of the upcoming “Professional Visual Studio 2008” book from Wrox. He blogs about Visual Studio and .NET at http://www.professionalvisualstudio.com/, and has a personal website at http://peaksite.com/.

An update to the PowerShell Community Extensions has been released over at CodePlex.

PowerShell Community Extensions (PSCX) is aimed at providing a widely useful set of additional cmdlets, providers, aliases, filters, functions and scripts for Windows PowerShell that members of the community have expressed interest in.

For all those planning on attending the Readify RDN event this Thursday 29th May, there has been a late change of venue due to the high number of people who have registered for the event. It’s now being held just around the corner at Cliftons:

Cliftons
Mezzanine Floor, Australia Place
cnr St Georges Tce & William Street
Same Time: 5:30pm – 7pm

See you there!

JetBrains have just released the Beta version of Resharper 4.0: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/beta/beta.html

Sitepoint have made “The Photoshop Anthology” free to download for the next 30 days.

Here’s the link: http://www.sitepoint.com/launch/f948f3

If you are in Perth this Thursday, May 8th, join us at the Perth .NET Community of Practice to hear Dr Greg Low talk about occasionally connected systems using SQL Server Compact and Express editions. More details here.

Brian Harry‘s blog has a post detailing what’s in the latest release of the TFS Power Tools. The new ‘Unshelve to a different branch’ feature looks to be very useful.

Nothing new, but one of my colleagues made me aware of this guide for synchronizing Contacts and Calendars across multiple computers and gadgets: The Holy Grail of Synchronisation. He also sent me these useful links:

ScheduleWorld: http://www.scheduleworld.com/

Funambol Sync tool for Outlook: http://www.funambol.com/opensource/downloads.php

I have a hard time thinking about “The Holy Grail” without the phrase “Fetchez la Vache!” springing to mind…