Entity Framework and MySQL
Although MySQL don't seem to be very interested in providing a native support for LINQ to MySQL and you have to use 3-rd party providers to interact with MySQL by using LINQ, they seem to move towards Entity Framework. They are holding a webinar about using Entity Framework with MySQL on September, 30.
I think this can be a one reason of many why it's worth using Entity Framework, the support by database vendors is a great thing. It is not the only reason, of course, there are many other ones. The main thing is that Entity Framework provides a higher level of abstraction than LINQ to SQL, for instance. It can be a topic for a series of articles, so I think, I'll cover Entity Framework in other articles.