Book excerpt: Build your expertise as you move beyond the basics--and delve into the core topics of programming with ASP.NET 2.0. Useful to both experienced developers and those developing new skills, this ultimate reference is packed with expert guidance, hands-on programming instruction, and practical examples to help you advance your mastery of developing applications for the Web. Discover how to: Author rich, visually consistent pages and manage layout with themes and Master pages Create personalized pages that persist user preferences Retrieve, modify, and manage data with Microsoft ADO.NET Configure the HTTP pipeline to serve ASP.NET 2.0 pages Control program flow by tracing and handling exceptions Design caching layers and learn state management techniques to optimize application performance Manage users with membership control, registration, and authentication capabilities Build real-world data access layers using common design patterns Use custom collections with data source controls Learn the internals of grid controls PLUS--Get code samples on the Web