I'm hoping this makes the "PDC bloggers" blog, so the PDCpeople will see it...

So, I'm attending the Microsoft Professional Developer's Conference next week.  What do I want to get out of it?

• I want to get the big picture.  What's new, and how do the new things tie together?
• • All these code words, all the inside jokes, all the mysticism - hey, keep it simple.  I'm just an experienced coder trying to build applications, tell me what I need to know.
     
• I want to understand all the code words.  What do they mean?
• • Longhorn
  • Whidbey
  • Avalon
  • Yukon
  • WinFS
  • Indigo
  • MSBuild
  • XAML
  • etc...
     
• Where does all this new stuff leave COM?  Are OCXs still a thing?  Will they still work?  And what's the blessed new way to build components?
• I'm someone still developing mostly under VS6, with VC++ and VB.  I don't want to ship the .NET CLR with all my applications.  When should I move to VS.NET?  When should I migrate from VC++ to C#?  When should I migrate from VB to VB.NET?  When should I target WinXP instead of Win2K?
• Tell me how to use SOAP.  I get XML, and I get HTTP.  I get XML-RPC.  SOAP seems so much harder, please, make it easy for me...
• I want to get a list of "deep" contacts, so I can get further questions answered "from the inside".
• And finally: What is .NET?  (I mean, really, all marketing hype aside...)

Hey, thanks!