VSTO 2005 Launch- Ready to Rock

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https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a4bb5378-7253-4212-b419-28ea6f3afdea&DisplayLang=enI am in San Francisco right now for the VS 2005, BizTalk 2005, and SQL Server 2005 Launch. Because I always do a Rock Thought for the Day, I'm pretty pumped that our theme for the Launch is "Ready to Rock". To top it off, Cheap Trick is playing tonight, and that is very cool. They played right before Ballmer stepped on stage for the Keynote this morning too. A tribute band, AC/DShe is playing tonight as well (all-girl AC/DC band....Uh, I'm not sure what to say about this one).

The excitement is pretty high. It is so satisfying to come to an event like this and hear tons of praise from customers about what we are delivering. I always think about my friends back in Redmond who are mostly anonymous but who do the bulk of the real work to make these products happen. I would love to tape every good thing said here and give it to them. It makes me feel really good about what we do.

As part of the launch, we have updated the Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office samples, HOL, snippets, and article downloads for RTM. You can find them on MSDN, but here are the links:

We have two new articles coming out as well, one of which will hit the Web tomorrow for using the My.Blogs library with an Outlook Add-in.

Rock Thought for the Day: I finally bought the complete Metallica's St. Anger CD with accompanying DVD. I had purchased some of the tracks separately, but I like to have the CD with liner notes and so forth. I bought the clean version so no Parental Advisory. It is a controversial album because there is no Kirk solos, and the drum sound Lars was driving for is different. Those who think the black album is their peak will never be satisfied with anything after that anyway, so there is not much to say to convince them otherwise. In my view, it is their best album. Every track is strong. The long, sometimes awkward arrangements that are their signature are so much more mature here without losing their unpredictability and ability to really surprise. The lyrics are stronger. I have read criticism that some of the words are weak like, "My life style determines my death style." To that I say- this band is not trying to go for subtle poetic metaphors. This is a heavy metal band channeling the spirit of Johnny Cash. It's all about being raw, real, honest, and loaded with power. It is undeniably their best so far. Way to go guys.

Rock On