We would like to thank all the people who helped us during the writing process; their input made this a much better book. First on the list is our amazing editor at Manning, Lianna Wlasiuk. She showed an endless amount of patience and had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of the proverbial red ink. Her feedback and guidance turned these cloud geeks into writers.
Secondly, a big thanks to Mike Stephens. He’s a great guy who did an amazing job in shaping this project. We’d also like to thank our publisher Marjan Bace for his insight and vision. Those early conversations with him helped us go in the right direction. And thanks to Christina Rudhoff for kicking off the book in the first place, and to Mary Piergies for her management of the production process. You guys are awesome.
We would also like to thank the other staff at Manning. While any author can ship a book, Manning knows that shipping a great book is a team sport, and they have an excellent team in place. Their constant support and guidance—and the challenge to push the book further—are greatly appreciated.
There’s another group of people who were key to making this book successful, the group of reviewers that read the manuscript four or five times over the past year, pointing out weak parts of the story, plot holes, and places where better code samples could be provided. We’d like to thank James Hatheway, Alex Thissen, Scott Turner, Darren Neimke, Christian Siegers, Margriet Bruggeman, Nikander Bruggeman, Eric Nelson, Ray Booysen, Jonas Bandi, Frank Wang, Wade Wegner, Mark Monster, Lester Lobo, Shreekanth Joshi, Berndt Hamboeck, Jason Jung, and Kunal Mittal.
Special thanks to Michael Wood who served as the technical proofreader of the book, reviewing it again shortly before it went to press and testing the code. We couldn’t have done it without you.
Our early readers, people who bought the book through the Early Access program, before it was even done, were a big help too. They suffered through drafts, impartial chapters, and early cuts of code. Their feedback in the forums was critical to where we went with the book.
I don’t want this to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech (boo hoo, I want to thank my goldfish, blah blah blah), but it’s gonna be a little like that as I really do want to call out a few folks. I guess I lose my right to laugh at those blubbering celebrities in the future.
The biggest thanks of all go to my wonderful wife, who woke up one morning to discover that due to the UK/US time zone difference, I had negotiated a book deal whilst she was sleeping. In spite of this, she gave me her full support, without which this book would never have happened. She is totally awesome and I love her very much. Thank you, Katy, for being so cool and supportive.
I want to apologize to my dogs (Sascha and Tufty) for the impact on their walking time and thank them for distracting me when I got bogged down with too much work. They brought me their bouncy balls and even figured out how to shut down my computer.
Big thanks to my parents and my brother (please don’t read anything into the order of thanks; you really don’t come after the dogs). Thanks for the great start in life, especially buying me that ZX81 when I was 4 years old.
Thanks to Nathan for being my sounding board; truly appreciated it, dude.
Thanks to Brian and Michael for doing the production work on the book while I was working 18-hour days in India. You guys are awesome, thank you.
Santa Claus, thank you for bringing me presents every year, and Tooth Fairy, thank you for making tooth loss more bearable.
I’d like to thank all the guys at NxtGenUG (especially Rich, Dave, John, and Allister) for their support. P.S. If you have never gone to a .NET User Group then be sure to do so—it’s a lot of fun. Big thanks to the UK/US community in general (you guys know who you are, thank you).
Also thanks to Girls Aloud, the Pussycat Dolls, and Alesha Dixon for making cool music and helping me keep my sanity throughout the writing process. And if you are reading this book, then something has gone wrong with the universe which will require The Doctor to fix.
Finally, thanks to you, dear reader, for buying the book. I love you, kiss, kiss, kiss, boo hoo, wah wah ;)
I started learning how to write code when I was ten. My parents were supportive and understanding when they figured out that their middle son wasn’t normal, that he was a geek. Back then, geeks hadn’t risen to their current social prominence. They picked me up after work from UMF, and they didn’t kick me out of the house after I caused a small electrical fire while trying to control the box fan in my room with my CoCo 3. Thanks, Mom and Dad. A few years later, one of my aunts suggested I stick with computers as I grew up. She expected they would be important in the future. That sounds like a trivial prediction today, but back then, it seemed like something out of Nostradamus’s writings.
I also want to thank everyone at Microsoft for their encouragement, including my manager, Brian, who supported me in the extra work that writing a book takes.
Above all, I owe a tremendous debt to my family. My kids, Miranda and Elliot, kept me from totally disappearing into my office for 10 months with regular forced breaks. Elliot would come in and declare a 15-minute recess to go and play Xbox with him. Miranda would come in and write cute notes of support on my whiteboard or tell me about that latest book she was reading. Thanks kids, you’re the best!
But the one person I owe the most to is my beautiful wife. She kept me motivated; she gave me the time and quiet to write when I needed to write and the push to take a break when I needed to release pressure. I’d heard rumors about how hard it is to live with an author in the house from friends who gave me advice along the way (thanks Bill, Jim, and Jason). Without her I wouldn’t have been able to complete this huge project. She spent hours helping me simplify the story, revise the approaches, and dream up segues. Joanne, I would not be without you, and without you I would not be.
