All of these
txtUsername.Text <> vbNullStringtxtUsername.Text <> String.EmptytxtUsername.Text &
vbNullString is a constant, more likely out of VB6, String.Empty and "" are the same, some say that there is a performance difference, but that is not true, it is your choice what you use.
To check whether a string is empty you can use If String.IsNullOrEmpty(String). The advantage is that it will also check for null, because string is a class and because of this a reference type.