I have been a little burned out lately, which is probably why I wasn't the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh person to blog about the new book I have been working on. I think I get to the be the eighth person though.

I am very excited about this book. It’s called Windows Developer Power Tools, is being publishing by O’Reilly, and is written by myself and my good friend Jim Holmes.

The idea behind the book is to create a huge reference encyclopedia on some of the great time-saving and project improving tools available to you as a Windows developer. The book doesn't try to be a reference for each tool. There are whole books out there dedicated to some of these tools. Instead the book covers each tool, what it is used for, what situations it is best suited to, and then a quick introduction on how to get started with the tool. We have something like over 150 tools in over a 1000 pages so it’s definitely a big book. One thing I learned from Visual Studio Hacks is that having people write about their own tools is a very cool thing, so we continued that with WDPT. We have a plethora of great tool authors writing about their tools.

This book has representing a couple firsts for me. It was my first time really working with a co-author. It was a very enjoyable experience, I think Jim and I will still be friends when it is all said and done. It is also the first time I have been part of the new book publishing craze of getting a beta version out, you can download it from Rough Cuts right now. I really hope we get some valuable feedback from the program to incorporate in the final edition; which we are working on right now.

If you want to check the book out you can read through the table of contents and download a couple of sample chapters over on a small site Jim has set up. Please let us know what you think.

-James