Professional VB 2005

Bill Evjen is an active proponent of .NET technologies and community-based learning initiatives for .NET. He has been actively involved with .NET since the first bits were released in 2000. In the same year, Bill founded the St. Louis .NET User Group (www.stlnet.org), one of the world’s first .NET user groups. Bill is also the founder and the executive director of the International .NET Association (INETA–www.ineta.org), which represents more than 375,000 members worldwide.
Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Bill is an acclaimed author and speaker on ASP.NET and XMLWeb Services. He has written or coauthored more than 10 books, including Professional C# 2005 and Professional ASP.NET 2.0 (Wrox), XMLWeb Services for ASP.NET, ASP.NET Professional Secrets (Wiley), and more.
Bill is a technical director for Reuters, the international news and financial services company, and he travels the world speaking to major financial institutions about the future of the IT industry. He graduated from Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, with a Russian language degree. When he isn’t tinkering on the computer, he can usually be found at his summer house in Toivakka, Finland. You can reach Bill at [email protected].

Billy Hollis is coauthor of the first book ever published on Visual Basic .NET, VB.NET Programming on the Public Beta (Wrox Press) as well as numerous other books and articles on .NET. Billy is a Microsoft regional director and an MVP, and he was selected as one of the original .NET “Software Legends.” He writes a monthly column for MSDN Online and is heavily involved in training, consultation, and software development on the Microsoft .NET platform, focusing on smart-client development and commercial packages. He frequently speaks at industry conferences such as Microsoft’s Professional Developer Conference, TechEd, and COMDES. Billy is a member of the INETA speakers’ bureau and speaks at user group meetings all over the United States.

Rockford Lhotka is the principal technology evangelist for Magenic Technologies (www.magenic.com), a company focused on delivering business value through applied technology and one of the nation’s premiere Microsoft Gold Certified Partners. Rockford is the author of several books, including Expert Visual Basic .NET and C# Business Objects. He is a Microsoft Software Legend, regional director, MVP, and INETA speaker. He is a columnist for MSDN Online and contributing author for Visual Studio Magazine, and he regularly presents at major conferences around the world—including Microsoft PDC, Tech Ed, VS Live! and VS Connections. For more information go to www.lhotka.net.

Tim McCarthy is a principal engineer at InterKnowlogy, where he architects and builds highly scalable n-tier web and smart-client applications utilizing the latest Microsoft platforms and technologies. Tim’s expertise covers a wide range of Microsoft technologies, including, but not limited to: .NET Framework (ASP.NET/Smart Clients/Web Services), Active Directory, UDDI, SQL Server, Windows SharePoint Services/SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications. Tim has worked as a project technical lead/member as well as in a technical consulting role for several Fortune 500 companies. He has held the Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) and Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) certifications for several years and was one of the first wave of developers to earn the Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD) for .NET and MCSD for .NET certifications. He also holds the Microsoft Certified Database Administrator certification for SQL Server 2000.
Tim has been an author and technical reviewer for several books from Wrox Press and most recently was a lead author on Professional VB.NET 2003. His other books include Professional Commerce Server 2000, and Professional ADO 2.5 Programming. Tim is currently working as a lead author on the next edition of Professional VB.NET. Tim has written numerous articles for the Developer .NET Update newsletter, developed packaged presentations for MSDN, and has written a whitepaper for Microsoft on using COM+ services in .NET. He has also written articles for SQL Server Magazine and Windows & .NET Magazine.
Tim has spoken at technical conferences around the world and several San Diego area user groups (including both .NET and SQL Server groups) and he has been a regular speaker at the Microsoft Developer Days conference in San Diego for the last several years. Tim has also delivered MSDN webcasts, many of which were repeat requests from Microsoft. Tim also teaches custom .NET classes to companies in need of expert .NET mentoring and training.
Tim holds a B.B.A. in marketing from the Illinois Institute of Technology as well as an M.B.A. in marketing from National University. Before becoming an application developer, Tim was an officer in the United States Marine Corps. Tim’s passion for .NET is only surpassed by his passion for Notre Dame athletics.

Rama Ramachandran is a software architect at DKR Capital, a major hedge fund company in Stamford, Connecticut. He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer and Site-Builder and has excelled in designing and developing WinForms and Web applications using .NET, ASP.NET, Visual Basic and SQL Server. Rama has more than 15 years’ experience with all facets of the software development lifecycle and has cowritten Introducing .NET, Professional ASP Data Access, Professional Visual InterDev Programming (all Wrox Press), and four books on classic Visual Basic.
Rama is also the “ASP Pro” at Devx.com, where he maintains ASP-related columns. He teaches .NET Development and Web Development for Fairfield University’s master’s degree in software engineering, and at the University of Connecticut. You can reach Rama at [email protected].

Kent Sharkey. Born in an igloo and raised by wolves in a strange realm called “Manitoba,” Kent Sharkey wandered the wilderness until found by a group of kind technical evangelists and migrated to Redmond. He now is content strategist (yeah, he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do either) for ASP.NET content on MSDN. When not answering email he dreams of sleeping, complains to everyone around (come to think of it, he does that while answering email as well), and attempts to keep his housemates (Babi, Cica, and Squirrel) happy.

Bill Sheldon is a software architect and engineer originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Holding a degree in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) qualification, Bill has been employed as an engineer since resigning his commission with the U.S. Navy following the first Gulf War. Bill is involved with the San Diego .NET User Group and writes for Windows and .NET magazines, including the twice monthly Developer .NET Update email newsletter. He is also a frequent online presenter for MSDN and speaks at live events such as Microsoft Developer Days. He lives with his wife, Tracie, in Southern California, where he is employed as a principal engineer with InterKnowlogy. You can reach Bill at [email protected].