The Microsoft Office 2007 suite of products are based on an open XML format called Open XML. In this session we’ll demonstrate how to use the Open XML SDK to make it easy to work with these new formats as well as show how to easily manipulate these document parts with LINQ to XML.

This session will be an overview of all the major LINQ providers and how to effectively use them in common business scenarios. We’ll discuss architectural considerations as we go over LINQ to relational data using LINQ to DataSets, LINQ to SQL and LINQ to Entities pointing out the benefits to each approach. We’ll also go over LINQ to XML and demonstrate some practical uses of creating, querying, transforming XML as well as how to take advantage of this technology with Office.

XML permeates every modern application today from XHTML, XAML, RSS, SOAP, Open XML just to name a few. Even your Visual Studio project files and configuration settings are XML files. The latest version of Visual Basic in Visual Studio 2008 supports a new language syntax aimed at making you much more productive when working with XML. In this session we'll walk through language features like XML literals, embedded expressions and axis properties in order to create, query and transform complex XML with this powerful but easy to use syntax. We’ll also cover tips and tricks and look at other interesting and productive uses of this technology that you may have never thought of before. Say goodbye to XSLT and hello to Visual Basic 9.