I'm a big fan of the Web Application type that was previously available as an add-on to Visual Studio 2005 but thankfully got promoted to a standard citizen with Service Pack 1.

So with a little more time on my hands lately I've been delving into the wonder that is LINQ - part of the forthcoming Orcas release of technologies.

For those who've been living under a rock LINQ is a set of extensions to .NET that let you perform queries on objects in much the same way you would do on a database with SQL (except the syntax is backwards by comparison).

Now while the LINQ Preview CTP installs LINQ projects for C# Class Libraries, Windows Applications and Console Applications it inconveniently misses-out Web Applications!

You can drop this ZIP file in your %UserProfile%\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C# to gain a new ASP.NET LINQ Web Application project type for you to start with as often as you like as shown:

Or if you want to modify an existing Web Application simply:

1. Open up the .csproj file in Notepad and replace
   <Import Project="$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
   with
   <Import Project="$(ProgramFiles)\LINQ Preview\Misc\Linq.targets" />
2. Add project references to:
   System.Data.DLinq
   System.Query
   System.Xml.XLinq

Hopefully more LINQ related posts as I get to grips with it.

[)amien