Our celebration of 25 years of publishing by Microsoft Press continues this month with two more free e-books available for the next week! These offers expire on May 27, 2009, so download the e-books today....

"MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-652): Configuring Windows Server Virtualization," by Nelson Ruest, Danielle Ruest, and Grandmasters (Microsoft Press, 2009; ISBN: 9780735626799; 656 pages), shipped to the printer today!...

“I heard a remark the other day that seemed stupid on the surface, but when I really thought about it I realized it was completely idiotic and irresponsible. The remark was that it's better to crash and let Watson report the error than it is to catch the exception and try to correct it."...

And another one shipped today! Rob Miles has completed his new book, "Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0: Learn Programming Now!" (Microsoft Press, 2009; ISBN: 9780735626584; 400 pages). ...

We provide some excerpts from Dino Esposito's new book, "Microsoft ASP.NET and AJAX: Architecting Web Applications."...

We’ve been covering poets and novelists in our Bits & Bytes series. So why not open it up to songwriters?...

We’re happy to announce that "2007 Microsoft Office System and Your Windows-Based PC: A Real-Life Guide to Getting More Done," by Future Publishing, shipped to the printer today. ...

In "Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services Step by Step," Scott Cameron writes, “Business intelligence should help you make better decisions faster.” And that’s just what Scott and his colleagues at Hitachi Consulting show you, whether you’re a BI developer, administrator, or business manager....

A coworker passed on this great tidbit about his experience using Expression Media 2 (part of the Expression Web 2 suite) to archive his photographs.

...

A shoutout to Aaron Margosis, a Microsoft Principal Consultant in the great state of Virginia, who also reviewed "Windows Internals, Fifth Edition."...

"Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Resource Kit," by Robert Larson and Janique Carbone with the Windows Virtualization Team at Microsoft, shipped to the printer today....

From May 5 – June 1, Borders.com is offering the MCITP Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Administrator Core Requirements: Self-Paced Training Kit: Exams 70-640/ 642/ 643/ 647 at 35% off the regular price of $229.99.

"Windows Internals, Fifth Edition," by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon, with Alex Ionescu, shipped to the printer today. To thank the large cast of characters who have supported the book over the years and who contributed to the book this time, we share the current edition’s “Acknowledgements.” ...

American novelist Thomas Pynchon turned 72 yesterday. Pynchon’s novels include V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity’s Rainbow, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, and Against the Day....

Forgive us: our post celebrating Thomas Pynchon today, on this birthday, is delayed. Please accept the following as recompense, because it’s Gary’s birthday too. ...

We just heard from our friends at MSDN Magazine and TechNet Magazine about a flurry of rumors making the rounds. In the interest of setting the record straight, we’d like to paraphrase Mark Twain....

"Windows Small Business Server 2008 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant," by Craig Zacker, is now available. Microsoft Windows SBS 2008 was developed to help the many small businesses that cannot afford to keep full-time IT people on staff, or to purchase some of the more expensive networking software products. ...