Hi Englere, I have a question for you please
1- Did you find any problems running the sample website in the book?
2- If I follow each chapter and rewrite the code do I will have a working website?
Thanks for your help
Salwa

The sample code has been updated since the book was published. They have included some small bug fixes in the code you can download now. However, it's not 100% complete. There are still some small things that will need to be customized. For example, there is no main page for Books or DVDs. This should be trivial, so it's not a big limitation.

Regarding the book, I don't think you have enough code in the book. They meant the book as a teaching tool. They included a lot of sample code and explanations, but they intentionally did not include all of the code in the book itself because it would have added a couple hundred pages. They had all of their code in the download, and it has been updated since they originally published it. Yes, it does work as advertised the first time if you follow the instuctions in the code archive file. The main requirements are:

1) Install the source code into a virtual dir named "ThePhile".
2) Create a new database (you can call it ThePhile)
3) Restore their database backup file into the new DB to populate it
4) Modify the connection strings in the .config files to point to your new DB.

I did all of this is about 30 minutes. Please read the documentation in the code archive because I may have left something out - I'm going from memory.

There's some more work needed if you want to upload this to a hosting company. I can provide more steps for this part later after I finish working through it myself. This part requires more work because they didn't intend for this kind of deployment. However, the guy who did the VB port helped us a lot because he changed the logging system to use a file instead of the Windows Event log. I back-ported his changes to C# and that helps a lot. Most hosting companies do not let you use the Windows Event Log.

Eric

Thanks Eric,:)

 Last questions. I know C#, ASP.NET, HTML, XML, SQL Server 2000 but I don't have any good experience in any of these. Do you think that i'm ready to study this book?
if you study 8 hours daily can you finish the book in 3 weeks?
Thanks again,
Salwa

I would recommend that you get some more "hands on" time with C# and ASP.NET before tackling this book.

I always recommend the book by Amit Kalani on ASP.NET. It's a study guide for the ASP.NET certification test, but it's the best way to learn ASP.NET even if you're not looking to get certified. He has a pattern in the book: learn a little, then do a step-by-step example to see how it works. He explains all the steps and it's great for beginners and experienced people who may not have seen certain parts of ASP.NET.

Look at the blue and orange study guides - not the Exam Cram books:
http://www.techcontent.com

For those of you who are interested in VB.NET, Mike Gunderloy has the same set of study guides using VB.NET.

Eric

Thanks Eric.

Yes I have this book and also I have programming ASP.NET and ASP.NET Essentials with C#.

 Tell me how many hours does it takes to finish the ASP.NET Website Programming book?
Thanks
Salwa

I can't answer that because I haven't finished. I am going thru it slowly and checking out the code as I go. I'm not just reading the book - I want to make sure I understand it all. Also, I am modifying the code to support the use of a commercial web hosting company. I'm only giving it about 2 hours a week, so it will take about 3 months total (I've already been at it for 1 month).