About the Author Stephen R. Davis, who goes by the name of Randy, has been a programmer and author for almost 20 years. He is currently a senior consultant with Valtech, a global consulting, training, and mentoring company (www.valtech.com). Randy can be reached at www.stephendavis.com. About the Contributor Richard Lassan is a Senior Consultant with GA Sullivan in the Nashville, Tennessee, office. Richard has been actively involved in software development for the past fifteen years. His first computer was the TI994A, and from there he moved on to the Commodore 64, the Apple II, and finally the IBM PC. Richard currently spends his time learning .NET and writing and evangelizing about the benefits of building applications with .NET. He can be reached at [email protected]. About the Series Editor Michael Lane Thomas is an active development community and computer industry analyst who presently spends a great deal of time spreading the gospel of Microsoft .NET in his current role as a .NET technology evangelist for Microsoft. In working with over a half-dozen publishing companies, Michael has written numerous technical articles and written or contributed to almost 20 books on numerous technical topics, including Visual Basic, Visual C++, and .NET technologies. He is a prolific supporter of the Microsoft certification programs, having earned his MCSD, MCSE+I, MCT, MCP+SB, and MCDBA. In addition to technical writing, Michael can also be heard over the airwaves from time to time, including two weekly radio programs on Entercom (http://www.entercom.com/) stations, including most often in Kansas City on News Radio 980KMBZ (http://www.kmbz.com/). He can also occasionally be caught on the Internet doing an MSDN Webcast (http://www.microsoft.com/usa/webcasts/) discussing .NET, the next generation of Web application technologies. Michael started his journey through the technical ranks back in college at the University of Kansas, where he earned his stripes and a couple of degrees. After a brief stint as a technical and business consultant to Tokyo-based Global Online Japan, he returned to the States to climb the corporate ladder. He has held assorted roles, including those of IT manager, field engineer, trainer, independent consultant, and even a brief stint as Interim CTO of a successful dot-com, although he believes his current role as .NET evangelist for Microsoft is the best of the lot. He can be reached via email at [email protected].