Professional XML

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 such groups. Bill is also the founder and former executive director of the International.NET Association (www.ineta.org), which represents more than 450,000 members worldwide.

Based in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Bill is an acclaimed author (more than 13 books to date) and speaker on ASP.NET and XML Web services. He has written or co-written Professional C# 2005; Professional VB 2005; and the best-selling Professional ASP.NET 2.0, as well as ASP.NET Professional Secrets, XML Web Services for ASP.NET, Web Services Enhancements: Understanding the WSE for Enterprise Applications, Visual Basic.NET Bible, and more. In addition to writing, Bill is a speaker at numerous conferences, including DevConnections, VSLive, and TechEd. Along with these items, Bill works closely with Microsoft as a Microsoft Regional Director and he has received the Microsoft MVP designation for many years.

Bill is the technical Architect for Lipper (www.lipperweb.com), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reuters, the international news and financial services company. 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. He presently keeps his weblog, www.geekswithblogs.net/evjen.

Kent Sharkey is an independent consultant who lives and codes in the midst of the wilds of Vancouver Island. Before going solo, Kent worked at Microsoft as a technical Evangelist and Content Strategist, promoting the use of.NET technologies. When not coding or writing, he's off hiking, biking, or canoeing (or exploring the wilds of Azeroth). He shares his house with his wife, Margaret, and two "8220;Children," Squirrel and Cica.