The .NET Framework 3.5 builds upon the new features found in .NET Framework 3.0 and brings a new version of ASP.NET to center stage with ASP.NET 3.5. Applied Innovations fully supports ASP.NET 3.5 hosting as well as earlier versions of the .NET Framework. Among the new technologies introduced are:

Language Integrated Query (LINQ) in .NET 3.5:
With LINQ in .NET Framework 3.5, the process of building SQL queries using error-prone string manipulation is a thing of the past. LINQ makes your relational data queries a first-class language construct in C# and Visual Basic, complete with compiler and Intellisense support. For Web applications, the ASP.NET LinqDataSource control allows you to easily use LINQ to filter, order and group data that can then be bound to any of the data visualization controls like the ListView and GridView controls.

New ListView and DataPager Controls:
The new ListView control gives you unprecedented flexibility in how you display your data, by allowing you to have complete control over the HTML markup generated. ListView‘s template approach to representing data is designed to easily work with CSS styles, which comes in handy with the new Visual Studio 2008 designer view. In addition, you can use the DataPager control to handle all the work of allowing your users to page through large numbers of records.

AJAX Integration:
AJAX is one of the most promising technologies in web development and has already gone far in improving the web user’s experience. Basically what it means is that an AJAX enabled web page can query the server and redisplay a part or the web page without the whole page needing to be refreshed. The LINQ syntax is possible due to a number of new language features in C# and Visual Basic, including automatic properties, extension methods, and lambda expressions.
For example, in a registration form that asks you to type in a new username for yourself, you must have noticed that after typing in a username, some web pages tell you immediately whether or not that username is available after you remove focus from the textbox. Under normal circumstances, you would have to click a "Check if username is available" link, or wait for the form to be submitted before you were informed of the error.
In this case, AJAX was able to query a backend database automatically and allow that portion of the webpage to change with the availability status without the whole page having to reload. This has the benefits of saving bandwidth as well as improving the user experience.

Works best with SQL Server:
Several features of .NET are automatically configured for ease of use with Microsoft's SQL Server. However, with modern hosting plans these days, you get to use MSSQL's Web edition with unlimited scalability. This is a boon to .NET developers everywhere!
All in all, ASP.NET is a major programming platform and with the latest 3.5 release as well as SQL Server's Web release, there's nothing to hold back developers from this superb programming framework.

Hence we conclude that new versions of Visual Studio and ASP.NET add some interesting and overdue features. With ASP.NET 3.5, Microsoft has moved the ASP.NET AJAX framework from a stand-alone extension to part of the .NET Framework, and has rounded out its data Web controls offerings with the addition of the ListView and DataPager controls. Visual Studio 2008 includes enhancements to the web developer experience, including a richer Designer, enhanced CSS editing capabilities, JavaScript IntelliSense and debugging, and the ability to mutli-target framework versions.