Porting AbiWord for Windows to Unicode

Hi,
It's an exciting day getting to know AbiWord is selected oncemore to
GSoC. As I have already mentioned earlier, I am interested in getting
involved in the above mentioned project.
While getting started, I would like to hear some more suggestions and
project specific guidelines.
1. Is it a good idea to use Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition (Visual
C++ 2008), as I am familiar with it.
2. What is the exact starting point, I should start working on. I
mean, as Jordi Mas has already done some initial work, is there
specific SVN branches which should be checked out.
Thanks sum1abi for your suggestions.
Thank you.
Regards.
Pradeeban.

-- 
Pradeeban.
University of Moratuwa.
[06CSE]
http://kkpradeeban.blogspot.com/