LINQ to SQL and the Entity Framework are very powerful tools, however as in many other useful tools there are some things you should be aware of when working with them. One of those things is object attaching and detaching. Let’s have a concrete example.

As you already know, you can retrieve an object from the database, update or remove it and all the necessary changes will be submitted to the database.

But what if you don’t want to perform additional SELECT query? Instead, you want just to perform one necessary query, either to update an object or remove it. More...

If you are using Microsoft SQL Server you don’t experience any problems, SQL Server are supported by both LINQ to SQL and the Entity Framework. Frankly speaking, it couldn’t be otherwise, since they all are made by Microsoft.

However, if you are using a non-Microsoft database engine, it’s certainly worth knowing if you can use LINQ to SQL or the Entity Framework with it. Moreover, it’s always better if there is native support. More...

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Although there is a built-in control for advertisement rotation in ASP.NET, it is capable of showing image ads only. However, in the real life you often have to deal with the ads that require some JavaScript code, for instance, you want to put there AdSense code or want to use Flash banners instead of images. Thus, if you want to rotate complex ads, you have to develop your own control.

In this particular tutorial I'll show you how to create a very simple, but rather functional user control that will randomly show an ad from an XML file More...

I read about the PHP Implementation of LINQ called PHPLinq. Frankly, I was sceptical about it. Finally, I gave it a try. I still remain sceptical...

Let’s me explain why. Take a look at this fairly simple example More...

LINQ to SQL is a great tool that saves a lot of time. However it has one disadvantage – it supports only SQL Server. Anyway it’s possible to write your own LINQ provider. Sure, there is one for MySQL. It is called DbLinq, in fact in supports many databases:

• MySQL
• Oracle
• PostreSql
• Ingress
• SqlLite

It’s not finished yet, however you can still try to use it. I’m going to explain how to use it in this article; we’ll go through 3 steps:

1. Installation
2. Using DbLinq in a console application
3. Using DbLinq in a ASP.NET application

More...

This tutorial doesn’t cover the theoretical basics of the new features and controls, instead it concentrates on the practical example of using the new features. This tutorial covers the following features:

• LINQ (Language Integrated Query) for the data manipulations
• ListView control for presenting the data
• LinqDataSource for binding data
• DataPager for pagination
• ASP.NET AJAX for getting rid of the unncecesassary page reloads