My Visual Basic.Net Librery

Ok now finally my review of all my Visual Basic books that I have been buying ready for when I go back to uni.

• VB.Net Deluxe Learning Edition
  In this pack you get Visual Basic Step By Step (a book) and VB'Net Standard 2003 (software). The book is excellent, and honestly the best self learning language book I have ever read. The software you get in this pack is essential because it IS the VB.Net language tool. Some languages like HTML and Java can be programmed using any kind of word editor, but with VB you really do need to used the official development platform, although the new version is so good I can't see anybody having a problem with that.
  
  
• Visual Basic.NET Complete
  I had one of these for Visual Basic 6 and it was good, so I got one for .Net too. It's basically one of those crappy learn it yourself books, but there are three of them all together and with a big reference section at the back, referencing to all three books, so it's kind of handy.
  
  
• Visual Basic.NET Language Reference
  Now this is an interesting book. It's the official Microsoft reference and it's purly referance material (to the exstreme). Like there are two page with just a big list of all the possible properties an object can have. No descriptions on what they are, just a big long list of them all. Another section has a table of all the variable conversion types (like integer = val(String)). I don't understand a lot of what's in there, but it's a reference book so that's ok. Apparently all the stuff in the book is available through the MSDN Libraries, but I never liked using that. I'am one of those people that prefers having a book I can look through and make notes (yes I write on my books, but with pride).
  
  
• Visual Basic.NET Programmer's Cookbook
  I wish I had of had this book for VB6 because it's simply invaluable. It's basically a code library with all it's code samples being carefully chosen. You can see the contents page Here and honestly there is loads I could have used in the past. I haven't done any .Net projects yet, but I am sure when i do this will come in handy. While flicking through it the other day I found an algorithm (can't find it now) that will allow you to verify a credit card number. It even has a whole section on security and cryptography, showing you how to encrypt a file and even create a random number that can't be reverse engineered by a malicious user.
  
  
• Managed DirectX 9
  Apparently this is a kickstart guide to using DirectX, but I haven't gotten-round to reading any of this yest because I am still not 100% upto speed on .Net (I been slacking off).