After a brief history of Visual Basic (VB), including hints on upgrading code from earlier versions, the author shares his expertise at debugging and accessing disks and files. Then it"s on to using VB"s date and string functions. (Here, the author includes some tips on coding for the year 2000 problem.) Throughout this clearly written text, the author stresses a real-world approach to features that users will expect. Along these lines, he looks at how to present data in a more sophisticated manner, using the TreeView, grid, chart, and other VB controls. A section on MAPI (Messaging Application Programming Interface) and e-mail programming offers some invaluable material for the corporate programmer, as do the chapters on printing. Later in the book, the author looks at Internet programming, paying attention to FTP and HTTP protocols and Winsock programming in VB. He covers Windows scripting, Win32 API functions, and dynamic control programming. The book finishes with some advice on optimizing VB applications and error handling. An appendix looks at incorporating transaction processing through Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) using VB. --Richard Dragan