I found this news a little startling, but certainly understandable.  It seems Red Gate Software is taking ownership of Lutz Roeder's .NET Reflector.  Fortunately, Red Gate will continue to offer a free version of the product but will no doubt offer a professional (pay) version, as well.  I'm reminded of that one time, at band camp, when Microsoft acquired Sysinternals.  Fortunately, those utilities are still free.

Microsoft just released .NET 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1.  While scrolling through the Overview section to see what's new in each service pack, I saw this:

VSTA 2.0 SDK

Huh?  Now, I've heard of Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) before and I attended a DevCares.com event not long ago on VSTO, but I've never heard of VSTA.  Did Microsoft do another name change?

Apparently not.  According to this article:

"The same team that created Visual Studio Tools for Applications also developed Visual Studio Tools for Office and the two technologies share a common architecture. However, Visual Studio Tools for Office is designed for developers who want to include Microsoft Office in custom solutions, while Visual Studio Tools for Applications is designed for end users of any application that includes it. For example, an accountant could add a new capability to accounting software by writing a function, without having to involve the company's development department. End users add new functionality by creating add-ins."

So there you have it.  With these new tools coming out for much easier development on the Office platform, it's probably time to take a new look at making Office a front-end for some of our solutions.  You could make the same argument for SharePoint, but I think I'll leave that one alone for now.

I took a look at Andy Erickson's blog the other day and noticed his Now Reading section.  I thought that was pretty cool and started looking around to see how I could add such a widget to my BlogEngine.NET implementation.  

There doesn't appear to be a BlogEngine.NET widget for a bookshelf, but I did see in some of the CodePlex comments that folks were recommending Shelfari.com.  So, I hopped over there and gave it a try.  Previously, I had played around with LibraryThing.com, but there seemed to be some limitations with the free account--plus, do they have a widget you can drop on your site?  

At any rate, Shelfari seems to have the features I'm interested in, so I'm now pleased to present...Brad's Bookshelf!

For easy access, I've added a link to my bookshelf page on the top menu bar.  I've not added many books quite yet, nor made any comments or recommendations, but more of that should come in time.  I look forward to hearing your recommendations as well!