This page contains links and short descriptions of FREE .NET related books that I have found useful and which I believe will always be relevant.
Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability
This guide provides end-to-end guidance for managing performance and scalability throughout your application life cycle to reduce risk and lower total cost of ownership. It provides a framework that organizes performance into a handful of prioritized categories where your choices heavily impact performance and scalability success. The logical units of the framework help integrate performance throughout your application life cycle. Information is segmented by roles, including architects, developers, testers, and administrators, to make it more relevant and actionable. This guide provides processes and actionable steps for modeling performance, measuring, testing, and tuning your applications. Expert guidance is also provided for improving the performance of managed code, ASP.NET, Enterprise Services, Web services, remoting, ADO.NET, XML, and SQL Server.
Parallel Programming with Microsoft .NET
Design Patterns for Decomposition and Coordination on Multicore Architectures
parallel programming c# book
A book that introduces .NET programmers to patterns for including parallelism in their applications. Examples of these patterns are parallel loops, parallel tasks and data aggregation with map-reduce. Each pattern has its own chapter. Each chapter includes a description of the problem, an example of where the pattern is applicable, and code that implements the solution. On this site you will find; a preliminary draft of the book, the accompanying code samples and answers to the end of chapter questions.
The samples are written in C#, F# and Visual Basic and use the new parallel programming model that shipped with Visual Studio 2010. The samples use the parallel features of the .NET Framework version 4, which includes the Task Parallel Library (TPL) and Parallel LINQ (PLINQ).
- Introduction
- Parallel Loops
- Parallel Tasks
- Parallel Aggregation
- Futures
- Dynamic Task Parallelism
- Pipelines
- Adapting Object-Oriented Patterns
- Debugging and Profiling Parallel Applications
- Technology Overview
Parallel Programming book downloadable here
Design Patterns C#
This excellent book from Jean Paul V.A gives a clear break down of 23 popular design patterns. The example applications and scenarios I found very useful for remembering design patterns. With so many patterns it becomes tough to remember which is which without getting out Gamm et al or some other reference but I found remembering Jean Pauls examples helped me alot with patterns.
The Contents include.
Design Patterns c#
- Singleton pattern
- Command pattern
- Adapter pattern
- Decorator pattern
- Strategy pattern
- Template method pattern
- Visitor pattern
- Observer pattern
- Builder pattern
- Chain of responsibility pattern
- Abstract factory pattern
- Factory method pattern
- Flyweight pattern
- Proxy pattern
- Facade pattern
- State pattern
- Iterator pattern
- Mediator pattern
- Memento pattern
- Prototype pattern
- Bridge pattern
- Interpreter pattern
- Composite pattern
- References
- Source code
C# Essentials
The C# Essentials online bookcontains 28 chapters of detailed information intended to provide everything necessary to gain proficiency as a C# programmer.
- The C# Language and Environment
- A Simple C# Console Application
- Creating a Simple C# GUI Application with Visual Studio
- C# Variables and Constants
- C# Operators and Expressions
- C# Flow Control Using if and else
- The C# switch Statement
- C# Looping – The for Statement
- C# Looping with do and while Statements
- C# Object Oriented Programming
- C# Inheritance
- Understanding C# Abstract Classes
- Introducing C# Arrays
- C# List and ArrayList Collections
- Working with Strings in C#
- Formatting Strings in C#
- Working with Dates and Times in C#
- C# and Windows Forms
- Designing Forms in C# and Visual Studio
- Understanding C# GUI Events
- C# Events and Event Parameters
- Hiding and Showing Forms in C#
- Creating Top-Level Menus in C#
- Creating Context Menus in C#
- Building a Toolbar with C# and Visual Studio
- Drawing Graphics in C#
- Using Bitmaps for Persistent Graphics in C#
Short but good read on html 5
HTML5 is revolutionizing the Web, and now it’s coming to your ebook reader! With the release of the EPUB 3 specification, HTML5 support will officially be a part of the EPUB standard, and publishers will be able to take full advantage of HTML5′s rich feature set to add rich media and interactivity to their ebook content.
HTML5 for Publishers gives an overview of some of the most exciting features HTML5 provides to ebook content creators–audio/video, geolocation, and the Canvas–and shows how to put them in action. Learn how to:
- Intersperse audio/video with textual content
- Create a graphing calculator to display algebraic equations on the Canvas
- Use geolocation to customize a work of fiction with details from the reader’s locale
- Use Canvas to add interactivity to a children’s picture book
This book is intended to be a value adding reading material for beginner to intermediate C# programmers. It may also be used for accelerating the learning about new and upcoming features in C#, and also to get an introduction about new libraries in .NET. You may find random articles and alternate perspectives related to various aspects of C# – ranging from delegates, lambdas, fluent interfaces, dynamic features etc. with practical examples. 
Anoop’s blog is an excellent read. He gives top tutorials on c# and dot net related technologies.
Contents
- Revisiting Delegates, Anonymous Methods and Lambdas
- Creating Fluent Interfaces In C#
- Anonymous Types in C# and Object Initializer Syntax
- Type Inference in Generic Methods
- The Case Of switch-case in C#
- C# 4.0 dynamic Features – Under the hood
- Mr ExpandoObject in C# 4.0
- C# Enums – A Second Look
- Top 5 Developer Mistakes C# Developers Should Not Commit
- 4 NET 4.0 Libraries You Should Know About