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White papers

There are any number of excellent white papers out there that can help you work your way through the complex minefield of Visual Basic data access. Some are published by SQL Server Magazine or Visual Studio Magazine and some are only available here:

• Managing Server-side Cursors with ADO.NET: Here's how to create scrollable, updateable, keyset, static or dynamic server-side cursors using ADO.NET.
   

• Managing an @@Identity Crisis
  Letting SQL Server generate Identity values can make your job harder if you don’t know how to retrieve the new Identity values.

• Create an ADO.NET ConnectionString: Here's how to convert existing ADO connection strings to work under ADO.NET.

• Consistently Connecting with ADO.NET: How to connect to your data source in ADO.NET from Windows Forms, Web Services, and ASP.NET Applications—each time and every time.
   

• Using the ADO Stream Object to Manage BLOBs: This whitepaper is designed to help eliminate the need for the Chunk methods and all of the questions these methods generate. (Excerpt from ADO.NET Examples and Best Practices--2nd Ed., August 17, 2001)

• Managing Extended Properties: The sql_variant data type that lets SQL Server 2000 support user-definable extended properties for your database.
   
• Accessing SQL Server Named Parameters with ADO 2.6: Access parameter-based stored procedures with fewer lines of code and fewer problems (April 2001, SQL Server Magazine article)
   
• Award Winning Article! ADO Performance Best Practices: Get the best performance from your ADO application (February 2001, SQL Server Magazine article)
   
• ADO Performance "Best Practices":  How to get the best performance out of your ADO application and development team (2000, html)
   
• Getting your data into SHAPE -- the ADO 2.0 SHAPE provider:
  • Getting Your Data into SHAPE (1999, html)
     
• Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) -- The missing piece of the puzzle:
  This white paper was updated on 8/22/00 to reflect changes in SQL Server 2000 as well as more detail on the thread governor. Be sure to check out the new Microsoft KB article that points to a list of MSDE resources (Q251270 - INFO- Where to Find Information About MSDE for Visual Studio).
  • MSDE--the missing piece (1999, html)