VB.NET equivalent of C# property shorthand?
There is no shorthand for Visual Studio 2008 or prior for VB.NET.
In Visual Studio 2010 and beyond, you can use the following shorthand:
public property FirstName as String
This will be handled as your short version in C# is - I think they call it "Auto Property"
See also: Auto-Implemented Properties (Visual Basic)
In Visual Studio 2008, after typing just the keyword Property, press the Tab key. It'll paste a template snippet for you which you can fill very quickly.
But yeah, there is not a replacement of a Visual Basic 10-type shortcut in Visual Basic 9.