18.1. Introducing ASP.NET Profiles

Profiles in ASP.NET let you attach data to an individual's account and retrieve the data on each visit. ASP.NET makes it easy to collect, store, and display profile information. As this chapter shows, you don't even need to design a database schema or create a database file. It's all done within the Visual Web Developer (VWD) environment.

Although this chapter certainly has graphical, drag-and-drop action, you dip further into object-oriented programming with code. You get a feel for using the Profile's application programming interface (API). Don't worry; you can follow along quite well without grasping every programming nuance.

Rather than take days to build a realistic Web site from scratch, I show you how to add shopping cart/profile functions to a free sample application from Microsoft. It's the same site as in the preceding chapter, the Small Business Starter Kit.

There's no problem if you skipped previous chapters and landed here. There's no dependency except to refer to some setup instructions. You build a brand-new site based on the Microsoft sample.

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