Couldn't agree more on the Wrox books, excellent reference and learning material. I have been programming for over 10 years and the one thing I've found is that other programmers (in the main) are very helpful, don't be afraid to ask but try and figure it out for yourself first. Stick to the Windows standards if you are going to do this commercially as users expect to see standardised things - stupid things like an "About" box etc. My last point is this: There is always more than one way of solving a programming problem, some are more efficient than others but that is part of the learning curve. Good luck.