Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the PTR eNewsletter -

we're probably a little late to wish you all a Happy New Year but we hope you have a successful 2009 however challenging that may be. At PTR we can help to lift your spirits and be optimistic about your IT training over the coming year, in fact, this year marks our 20th in business as an independent training provider and we think that's something to be proud of.

We couldn't have done it without all our wonderful clients and delegates who come back to us time and time again, a true sign that our courses represent great value for money and are completely focussed on improving the productivity of our delegates and adding value to their businesses.

In this issue you will find details of our featured course Microsoft's Visual Basic 2005: Developing Applications. We also have all our usual features and a light-hearted moment at the end to hopefully bring a smile to your face.

If you would like to leave feed back on this newsletter please use the form, we are always interested to hear your views

Best wishes,

The PTR team

Learn to develop Visual Basic 2005 Applications.

Visual Basic has come a long way since the days of VB6. When you installed Visual Studio 6, you got a whopping 20 tools on the toolbox by default. Install Visual Studio 2005, and you'll have nearer to 80 available when creating a Windows application! Of course, that gives you masses more power to develop feature-rich applications, with easy access to standard Windows dialog boxes, notification area (systray) icons, database connectivity and much more... but as always, that power comes at a price.

How can you ever learn your way around such a vast array of tools? How can you hope to get a handle on the vast number of properties and methods that these tools expose? Or master the myriad of events - particularly given that every event seems to look the same, and follows a very different pattern to that used by VB6?

Books are always helpful - take a look in the Book Corner section of this newsletter for particular recommendations. But if you've ever tried asking a book a question, you'll know that there are limits to what they can do. That's where a course such as Microsoft Visual Basic 2005: Developing Applications comes in.

We take a hands-on approach, with dozens of exercises to introduce you to very many of these new tools, as well as some of the new programming techniques you'll need to work with them fully. We explore how VB .Net handles events, and the new powers given to strings, dates and other constructs.

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Choosing the correct C# programming course to meet your needs can sometimes be a daunting task, especially if you only have basic programming knowledge.

PTR Associates have recognised several key areas where C# training is required and provide the following learning solutions.

Q. Need C# Knowledge but only have basic programming experience?

A. Choose Essential C# Programming

This course is aimed at people requiring comprehensive introduction/intermediate knowledge of the key features of the C# language.

Prerequisites: Basic background in programming and knowledge of programming principals as covered by PTR's Fundamentals of Computer Programming using Java Course.
Click Here To See the Course Outline

Q. Are you an existing developer with a solid background in programming,  needing to update your skills to C#?

A. Choose C# .Net Conversion for Developers

You have experience in programming in at least one other object-oriented or object-based programming language. You are now entering the new world of .NET programming, using the C# programming language and Visual C#.NET platform.
Prerequisites:  1-2 years of programming background in either C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, Perl or Fortran.
Click Here To See the Course Outline

Q. Are you an existing developer with a solid background in programming needing to develop visual C# applications?

A. Choose: Microsoft Visual C#: Developing Applications

This course is aimed at people developing Visual C# Applications. You will learn how to use Visual Studio 2005 and Visual C# 2005 to build Windows applications to run on the .NET 2.0 platform

Prerequisites: This course assumes that students have at least 1-2 years programming experience in either C, C++, C#, Java, Visual Basic, Perl or Fortran background. No specific experience with Visual Studio, the .NET Framework.
Click Here To See the Course Outline

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Since the last newsletter a new Flavia drinks machine, and soft drinks fridge have now been installed in the delegate lounge offering a range of complimentary drinks and have been very well received. Also completed is the addition of free wireless access point and television. 

This month sees three of our classrooms being revamped with new desks and chairs to provide a more comfortable experience for our delegates.

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These are just a few of the very lovely things you say about us - we're already blushing!

• 'Beat all my expectations Peter very helpful' - Lee Ennis, Ericsson

• 'One of the best courses I have attended, helped by good tuition and small class size.' - Adrian Badger, Cable & Wireless

• 'Excellent facilities - would advise colleagues to attend' - Michael Brass, Siemens

• 'Very enjoyable course, learnt a great deal. Lunch again was amazing.' - Tim Wardle, ITT Defence

• 'Ian was fantastic. Worked at a steady pace enough to recognize when he lost me in his explanation to stop and explain in more detail. A credit to PTR' - Dan Kennoy, Omniledger Limited

• Excellent course, learnt a lot over the 4 days. Instructor very knowledgable and a good teacher.' - Darren Newton, Software Europe
  

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These are either deeply worrying or extremely edifying, you can decide for yourselves ....!

"Why is abbreviated such a flippin' long word?"

"If it's meant to be hot why is it called Chilli?"

"Do you know it's impossible to flush a ping-pong ball
down the toilet?"

"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important
part of your life"

and a joke,

A man walks into a Silicon Valley pet store looking for a monkey. The storeowner points towards three identical looking monkeys in politically correct, animal-friendly natural mini-habitats.
"The one to the left costs $500," says the storeowner.
"Why so much?" asks the customer.
"Because it can program in C," answers the storeowner.
The customer inquires about the next monkey and is told that "That one costs $1500, because it knows Visual C++ and Object-Relational technology."
The startled man then asks about the third monkey.
"That one costs $3000," answers the storeowner.
"$3000!" exclaims the man. "What can that one do?"

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In this issue...

Our resident techie, Andrew, delights in finding new features and software shortcuts that don't always appear in the official software manuals and handbooks.

.NET - what's in a number?

In many of their products, Microsoft have been slightly less than consistent with their numbering conventions. You may be aware that having gone from Windows 3.11 to 95 to 98, Microsoft switched to names - Millennium Edition, XP and Vista, but that the next version will go back to numbers - Windows 7 is now available as a beta. This can lead to confusion; which came first - Windows 95 or Windows NT 3.51? And was Office 98 an upgrade from Office 97? (Answers at the end!)

So, in this edition of Techie Corner, we thought we'd try to sort out the various versions of the .NET framework, when they were released, and which development tools accompanied them.

The last edition of the software development environment which pre-dated .NET was Visual Studio 6, released in 1998. This remained Microsoft's primary development tool until the advent of .NET in 2002. Since then, we've had the following versions:

Note that releases of the .NET framework, the set of tools (or "classes") and resources which underpin applications and development do not always coincide with releases of the development environment, or a particular operating system. So .NET 3 was actually incorporated into Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, but the first IDE to make use of these changes was Visual Studio 2008, which includes .NET 3.5 It's perhaps also worth noting that in recent versions of the development tool, Microsoft have actually dropped the .NET moniker, so it's Visual Studio .NET 2003, but simply Visual Studio 2005.

Finally, the answers to the quiz questions:

1) Windows 95 was released as a "Home user" operating system for desktops in August 1995, whereas Windows NT 3.51 was released as a Server and Workstation operating system designed for business use in May 1995

2) No. Office 97 was designed for PCs, whereas Office 98 was Microsoft's equivalent package for Apple Mac.

In the book corner we recommend books that we have found useful, well written and will enhance your training knowledge of your software.

Start-to-Finish Visual Basic 2005: Learn Visual Basic 2005 as You Design and Develop a Complete Application
Author: Tim Patrick
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
ISBN-13: 978-0321398000

This book takes you from having little knowledge of VB2005 through to developing a complete application - a database-driven system for a library. The style is lively and highly readable, and the approach is practical and down-to-earth. Probably not suitable for absolute beginners to programming, but a good way of learning to apply the knowledge you'd gain on our VB 2005 courses.

Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Step by Step
Author: Michael Halvorson
Publisher: Microsoft Press
ISBN-13: 978-0735621312

As always, the Microsoft Press "Step by Step" guide is packed with useful information and resources. It's possible to use this book as a way to learn how to program, but probably its real value is as an examples-based reference guide.

PTR Associates Limited
21A Peach Street,
Wokingham,
Berkshire,
RG40 1XJ
United Kingdom

Tel: 0118 979 4000
Fax: 0118 979 4035

Email: training@ptr.co.uk