Orite. First of all, VisualBasic.NET is an enhancement of the older version of Microsoft's Visual Basic 6.0. Since it is an enhancement, the syntax is somewhat similar but not the same. I learnt both language and VisualBasic.NET is much much better compared to VisualBasic 6.0 and the older version.
Based on your question, I guess you wanna have a quick yet effective learning environment and interavtive tutoring so that u could learn the language fast without books.
I can teach you how to do the vb.net programming including establishing the connection to the database (Microsoft Excess). The syntax is a little bit different as I explained earlier however, you have learnt vb before this. That is a very good advantage.
So, what you want to learn? I guess you better start as a beginner so i would like to start with several chapters:
1. Graphical User Interface in VB.Net - in this chapter, you
have to learn about the vb.net controls such as label, text
box, check box, combo box, list box, button, and other
advance controls like timer, progress bar, and status bar.
They are many of them but you have to learn the first six (6)
controls described earlier and try to create interface first.
After that, you have to know the event associated with
each control and one important reminder is that, VB.Net is
different in terms of event. One example is combo box. In
VB, if you double click the combo box during the design
time, you will see the event is Click event. However, in
VB.Net, the event is SelectedIndexChanged event. You
have to understand the event for each basic controls
before you jump to the advance controls.
As a guidelines, these are the basic events associated
with the basic controls:
i. button
Click
ii. list box & combo box
SelectedIndexChanged, DoubleClick
iii. check box & radio button
Click, CheckedChanged
iv. Form
Click, Load, Activate
2. Sequential Programming - In this chapter, you will perform
a simple programming in sequential execution. One
application that can be developed for sequential
programming is a calculator. You may use your own
formula for computation or you can use VB.net build-in
functions such as mathematical functions (Math.Pow,
Math.PI, Math.Ceiling, Math.Floor, Math.Sqrt etc). And you
display the result of the computation on a label. In this
chapter, the variable declaration as the same as vb
(e.g Dim intFirstNum As Integer to declare an integer).
3. Decison Programming - In this chapter, you have to focus
on several decisional programming structures such as If,
If...Else and Select Case..End Select statement.
4. Repetition Programming - In this chapter, you need to learn
how to perform a looping structure using For..Next loop,
while...end while loop, and do...loop loop structure. It is
essential to learn looping structure for large computation
and to use other vb.net controls such as list box and
combo box
(e.g to compute the selected items in the list box)
5. String manipulations - In this chapter you will learn how to
use various build-in string manipulation functions that are
crucial to modify the content of a text or string. You will need
many function to truncate a word, to calculate the
characters inside a string etc. Among the functions
including InStr function (to find a position of a charater in
a string), Len function (to calculate the length of a string),
LTrim, RTrim, Trim function (to truncate the string),
Mid function (to extract a string from a long string) etc.
6. Array - This is an important chapters for storing a large
array of data with the same data type. There are two types
of array: static array and dynami array. Arrays also could
be categorized as 1 dimensional array and 2 dimensional
array. Besides stroing the data, array help to perform
a computation of all the data in the array by using looping
structure described earlier to get the results such as
average, sum, or staticstics of the array.
9. File management - In this chapter, you need to learn how
to acquire data from the user and store the data in a text file.
This is very essential chapters to develop a simple storage
of information since vb.net is aimed for information systems
to capture data and process and later store the information
either in text file or database. There are two commands
for write to or read the data from the text file namely
System.IO.StreamWriter and System.IO.StreamReader.
10. Database Management - In this chapter, you will learn how
to aquire the data from either the database or user,
display them in the form and store them back in the
database. This is a better to approach that file
management systems to store data.
11. Web-based application - This chapter is optional and is
about developing a web site application using asp.net.
These are all the chapters for you to concentrate on as a beginner. Follow the sequence for easy learning. And for the best,
better buy a book about vb.net programming to learn not only on how to program but how to use the software called Microsoft Visual Studio to develop the vb.net application.
Title: Visual Basic.NET Programming
Business Applications with a Design Perspective (2nd Edition)
Author: Dennis, Wixom
Publisher : Wiley
(2002)