But how do we love them? Let me count two of the ways in this post.

First, we love the ones with the volume cranked up to 11. These types of verbatims usually include the word "suck" or one of its more colorful synonyms. These verbatims send a clear message because they are short, erudite sound bites -- "BizTalk Server sucks!", "This help sucks!", "It sucks!" or, my favorite, "Microsoft sucks!"  Why limit the feedback to a particular product or content set when you can score one against the Man?

Some variants of "you suck" show a level of caring and/or skill on the part of the writer, adopting the words of George Carlin with sophistication and grace. Things like "*#&$^!" and "(#&$$ (#*$&$!" and "(*#& LOLZ!" Poetry, ingenious poetry. If only Walt Whitman were alive.

Unfortunately, this type of verbatim contains little that is actionable. Sure, we get that you are frustrated with a product, feature, API, writing style, tone, font size, font color, MSNBC, the Talking Heads "Remain in Light" album cover on your Zune, and smarmy blogs, but be sure to be explicit. Go ahead and use "suck" or a selection from Carlin or Pryor, but make sure you include an explicit reference to what sucks. For example:

• "This type sucks because it is marked for internal use but you use it in one of your samples!" A fair variant would be "*&#&#! Why does sample <SupaSample> use this type when it is marked internal use only?" A citation to Pryor for the *@&# would be an awesome extra.
• "Microsoft sucks...and so does the fifth parameter in this method because it is redundant/misspelled/not used/etc." Microsoft sucks, check. Parameter five has a problem that we can fix to improve the customer experience, check!
• "Suck suck suck suck suck / suck suck suck suck suck suck suck / Snippet fails compile" We love haiku. This is art and information wrapped up in 17 syllables.

That last one has not, to my knowledge, actually been submitted.

We love existential comments. One day I was flicking the scroll wheel through a pile of verbatims and ran across the following:

Why won't someone help me?

Haven't we all felt this way about our computers, our lives and the universe? Why won't someone make my document print on the printer ten feet away from my office instead of in the copy room in the Kilgore, Texas branch? Why won't someone make this compile? Why can't I ski on hundred dollar bills while a DJ plays my favorite 80's tunes? Why won't someone help me?

Existential questions are poignant but not actionable without details. We want to help, we truly want to help remove the pain and angst, but unless we get some key details it is difficult. Throw in a few details:

• "Why won't someone help me identify the best practices for this <feature>?" 
• "Is there anyone out there who can give me a working code snippet?"
• "What, me worry about throttling memory thresholds when running an orchestration that does <some cool task>?"
• "Why? Why must I press cancel to accept the option for the <feature>?"

So go ahead and examine the metaphysical life of mankind in your feedback to Microsoft, but make sure to include a clear actionable item so we can do something while we ponder. Give us something to go on.

We do read your comments and ask that you send more.  In my next post, I will count a few more ways.

If so, look no further than the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Scale-Out Configurations poster. It shows the architecture for:

• Single Server
• Basic Scale-Out
• Advance Scale-Out

Take a look and then share your thoughts. Is it useful?  Did you print it out?  Do you have ideas for other posters or content?

•  BizTalk Server at Codeplex.
• The BizTalkDisassembler add-in for .NET Reflector is a great addition to one of my favorite tools on the net. Use the BizTalkDisassembler to sniff around BizTalk application assemblies to learn how a solution is compiled or to better understand an existing solution.
• BizUnit provides a solid framework for unit testing your BizTalk Server solution. Download the framework and leverage it in your next BizTalk Server project or use it to verify enhancements to an existing solution.
• Automate BizTalk Server tasks using the BizTalk Server provider for PowerShell. You use PowerShell, right?
• Got orchestrations?  Profile them using the BizTalk Server 2006 Orchestration Profiler. As the project page says, "this tool can be run to gain a consolidated view of orchestration tracking data for a specified period of time to help developers get an idea of how their orchestrations are being processed and how much coverage they are getting in their testing".
• The BizTalk Server Pattern Wizard provides a way to capture and reuse orchestration patterns. This is a great tool for ensuring orchestration uniformity across projects and can be easily extended as needed.
• Have the BizTalk Server 2006 Documenter capture your application details in a chm for posterity (and baselining). This is one of those "well duh" tools and is a natural companion to BizTalk Server...like one of those buddy-buddy flicks. Maybe Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop. Maybe.
• Check out the TCPIP Adapter, the ADO Adapter, the Patterns and Practices Enterprise Service Bus guidance, and other projects.
• BizTalk Server Newsgroups. Participate in the BizTalk Server newsgroups to find answers to common questions, discover tips and tricks, and contribute expertise to the community. 
• Blogs
• BizTalk Server Team Blog, a great place to find insights about BizTalk Server and the business process management space straight from the product group! Recent posts include information about TechEd US 2007 and BizTalk Services. Take a look!
• Random ramblings about Technology, a blog with material on BizTalk Server, WCF and other technology by Martijn Hoogendoorn.
• Jesus Rodriguez WebLog. Recent posts include bits on Windows Workflow and the SQL Server Service Broker, the Orca's Json Serializer, and the WCF NetMSMQ adapter.
• Jeff Lynch. Jeff has a great post on mapping the OrderGroupCollection schema in Commerce Server 2007.
• Matt Meleski's .Net Blog - The ABC's of .NET. Recent posts include BizTalk message helper methods and turning an immutable message in BizTalk into a mutable message.
• Jon Flanders' Blog:BizTalk and Windows Workflow Foundation. Jon has a great post on orchestration performance.
• Eric Stott's BizTalk and HL7 Blog. Eric has been busy providing great information about the cross-referencing functoid and associated API/tools and HL7. If you work with EDI, visit Eric's blog.

If I forgot your blog or your favorite site, drop me a line and I will put them on "part 2".

Take a look.

If you are not a member of the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 connect community, you can still get a copy of the beta through the Microsoft Connect Site, but it takes some persistence.

1.       Navigate to the Microsoft Connect Site, https://connect.microsoft.com/.

2.       Sign in using your Passport credentials.

3.       On the right side of the Connect home screen, click My Participation.

4.       On the My Participation screen, click available connections.

5.       On the Available Connections screen, scroll down to the nomination section, find the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Beta row, and then click Apply.

6.       On the Terms of Use screen, click I Agree if you agree. If you don’t agree, click Cancel.

7.       Enter your registration information then click Register.

8.       Once you pass the registration gauntlet, you will land on the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Beta release website.  Click the Downloads link located in the left-hand gutter of the page.

9.       Breathe deeply, you are almost there.

10.   On the BizTalk Server R2 Downloads page, click BizTalk Server R2 – Beta 2 Release. (Bonus:  If you want to take a look at the NET LOB Adapter Pack and WCF LOB Adapter SDK, it is available as well.)

11.   On the BizTalk Server R2 Download Details page, choose a distribution source and then click Download.

12.   D’oh! You will need to install “Microsoft File Transfer Manager 5.0 (Build 0027)” if you have not already installed it. Allow the control to install.

13.   In the Transfer Manager, confirm the download location.

14.   While it is downloading, go grab the installation or upgrade documentation here.

<Insert flames about the number of steps required to get the bits here.>

Is this too much to digest at one sitting?  Let me know how you would like the content split up and I'll see what we can do.

Or you could grab some software and convert choice topics into your own custom CHM. If this is appealing, you could cobble together your own solution using some open source goodness, Word 2007 and some c# -- mix it all up in a pot like gumbo -- and convert CHM's with your own tech. By doing it yourself, you could take CHM topics (they are HTML inside the CHM), run your own XSL transform against them to remove header/footer and other stuff you don't want, override the CSS if the mood strikes you, then run it through Word with the PDF export and weave together some custom stuff. PDF stuff. Or XPS stuff. Whatever.

If the latter appeals to you -- a guerilla tool for converting CHM's -- what features would you expect?  What kind of UI would make it happy to use? I tend to write tools like this to be command-line driven or they can be batched up and then duct-taped to other processes in a workflow. I don't do UI's. But if this were "Project UI", what would you look for?

Look for bits sometime soon.

Come on Eileen!

I caught a couple of episodes of "new" Scooby Doo and thought they were more hip than the ones I grew up with. Charm has its place, but the new Scoob is great with plenty of bones thrown to the adults. Thanks to the Woodinville branch of the King County Library system for having Scooby Doo sitting on the shelves. (I saw "Rogurt" at the grocery store -- yep, "go gurt" with Scooby Doo. Great marketing.)

Zoiks!