In moving my printer the other day I remembered that the box it was sitting contained about 40 spare copies of my book, Mystic Microsoft!

So I thought I'd offer these to readers of this blog as holiday gifts, completely free (I'll even pay the shipping). In other words, drop me your name and address to kraig (at) kraigbrockschmidt.com along with how many copies you'd like, and I'll send them to you. No strings attached. I'll even sign them! 

I would only request, without obligation of course, that you too enter into the spirit of generosity during the holidays, by giving of your time and/or money to any cause that inspires you.

Update 12/1/09: A good dozen books went out in the last week, but I still have more. Requests are still welcome.

Update 12/15/09: Still 15 copies left, with others heading out to various parts of the world.

Update 1/1/10: Still a few copies remain, so inquiries still welcome. Thanks to all those who've written their appreciation for the gift and haev also paid it forward.

After publishing Mystic Microsoft in 2007 I gave a couple of interviews that are available online.

7/15/2007: Appeared as a guest on Pathways, a show on the public radio station KBOO in Portland, OR. Available as audio.

11/26/2008: Appeared on Present! with Mel van Dusen on KMTV in Mountain View, CA. Video on YouTube.

Written June 30^th, 2009

This is meant to be an insert within a forthcoming "What Exactly Does One Do With 'Oslo'?" article; originally it was part of that piece but tended to make the whole thing somewhat lengthy!

Some of you may remember the work I did in my "version 1.0" career at Microsoft, which spanned the years between 1990 and 1996. During most of that time I worked as a software engineer in the Developer Relations Group (which eventually turned into Developer & Platform Evangelism) with the purpose of helping developers outside of Microsoft understand and apply our technologies. In this capacity I ended up as the industry expert on the OLE and COM technologies. This put me on stage at many developer conferences and saw the publication of Inside OLE 2 (1993) and Inside OLE 2^nd Edition (1995).

At that time, the focus was pretty much on desktop applications; client-server applications were really just starting to hit the mainstream, including web applications. And that was the very point at which I retired from the high-tech scene altogether. (For the complete story of my first career, which many people tell me isn't actually boring at all, see my book, Mystic Microsoft.)

Thus I completely missed out on the evolution of Microsoft's component technologies beyond the desktop. While people like my friend Don Box were circling the globe talking about DCOM, .NET, and all kinds of new middle-tier and enterprise-level stuff like Microsoft Transaction Server, App Server, BizTalk Server, and what have you, I was off doing completely different things (see www.kraigbrockschmidt.com). To what extent I fiddled with technology, it was pretty much still limited to client apps, managing a few Access databases, and putting together some simple websites. What I learned of .NET was pretty slim, just enough to be mildly confused.

Ironically, the chap who was my direct manager when I wrote this, the very visible Chris Sells, got started in all this shortly before my exit. Having started his path with COM at one of my presentations, he eventually worked with Don Box at DevelopMentor where he earned his living, as he puts it, "telling people how to minimize round-trips in DCOM." Since then he's been pretty deeply immersed in the heart of efforts like Microsoft code name "Oslo."

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