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
evjen@yahoo.com.
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 ramabeena@hotmail.com.
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 bills@interknowlogy.com.