What next?

Hello gang, I have been working with asp.net and C# since December coming from a
2 year background in PHP. I have developed and deployed my first db driven
asp.net intranet site for my company and have read "Build Your Own ASP.NET
2.0 Web Site Using C# & VB" by Cristian Darie (which I will add is an
excellent book for newbies). I would like to continue my learning and work
toward taking one of the microsoft certification exams in 10-12 months or so (do
you think this is a reasonable time frame??). I am wondering which book should I
pick up next? With the 3.5 certification tests coming, I believe I should focus
my learning in that direction. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

i think if u worked hard it will be more than enough and if u want to improve
your skills try working on some community projects (www.codeplex.com)

wish u a good luck ;)

I'd look at ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed, by Walther.  You're going to want it as a
reference anyway.  Professional ASP.NET 3.5 by Wrox is also good.  O'Reilly has
a book out, Building a Web 2.0 Portal With ASP.NET 3.5, that looks really good
but I haven't gotten into it yet.  Omar Al Zabir, the author, has stuff out on
CodeProject that is really good, though some of it is over my head still.  :)

None of these will help you with the exams, and most employers don't seem to
care about the certifications anymore anyway.  Too many people got them without
actually knowing how to do the work, so employers rarely use them in hiring
decisions.

Jeff

thanks for the responses. I am going to check out "Building a Web 2.0
Portal With ASP.NET 3.5", the reviews look good and the concept sounds
interesting.

Cheers!

there are plenty of books here http://www.asp.net/community/books/ read about
them and the buy the one that will help more