The following are some suggested supplemental references to further your retraining effort.
ADO.NET and ADO Examples and Best Practices for VB Programmers, 2nd Edition, by William (Bill) Vaughn (Apress, 2002):
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=79.
Advanced Transact-SQL for SQL Server 2000, by Itzik Ben-Gan and Dr. Tom Moreau (Apress, 2000):
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=72.
Code-Centric: T-SQL Programming with Stored Procedures and Triggers, by Garth Wells (Apress, 2001):
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=73.
Database Programming with Visual Basic .NET, by Carsten Thomsen (Apress, 2001):
http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=21.
.NET Magazine:
http://www.fawcette.com/dotnetmag/
Visual Studio Magazine:
http://www.fawcette.com/vsm/
XML & Web Services Magazine:
http://www.fawcette.com/xmlmag/
.NET Architecture Center:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/
.NET Data Access Architecture Guide:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnbda/html/daag.asp
About Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/off2000/html/acconAboutMSDE.asp
ADO.NET Primer :
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnsql2k/html/sql_adonetprimer.asp
DB2 Universal Database (IBM's database product):
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/db2/udb/features.html
Fujitsu NetCOBOL for .NET:
http://www.netcobol.com/products/ windows /netcobol.html
Microsoft Application Blocks for .NET:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnbda/html/daab-rm.asp
Microsoft Community (discussion groups, e-newsletters, and so forth):
http://communities2.microsoft.com/
Microsoft Patterns & Practices:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Home Page (Microsoft's database product):
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/default.asp
MSDN:
http://msdn.microsoft.com
NetCOBOL for .NET QuickStart Tutorial for ADO.NET and XML:
http://quickstartcobol.eraserver.net/quickstartcobol/howto/
Oracle9 i Database (Oracle's database product):
http://www.oracle.com/ip/deploy/database/oracle9i/