Don't judge co-workers by their book's cover

I went into a Barnes & Noble bookstore over the weekend to browse what is new, which I generally do about once a month. The two sections I generally browse is the magazine section and the computer books section. When I walked over to the computer books section, the first book I saw on the new releases shelf was a Wrox book called SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Starter Kit. What also caught my attention was one of the two mug shots on the cover of the two authors. The one on the right was of Lance Delano, someone who had an office next to me on the VS Data team before I moved to the Windows Live team last week. Congratulations to Lance for being a co-author on this new book which looks like a good one to have for SQL Server 2005 Express.

Lance was the key person in the Visual Studio division sponsoring and driving VS related integration for SQL Server 2005 Express. Lance was once one of the key people working on InfoModeler back in the early to mid 90s, which got bought by Asymetrix which got bought by Visio which was bought by Microsoft - which is how Lance ended up eventually stuck sitting down the hallway from me on the VS Data team. Overview of his new book:

This book is a step-by-step guide for data base programming novices. It is intended to serve the needs of hobbyists downloading SQL Express for the first time, as well as advanced users such as an ISV intending to redistribute their application along with SQL Express. The step-by-step samples cover all the major scenarios the customer will face, from installation and development to debugging and deployment.