LOC

Acknowledgments

As with any project of this magnitude, it took a considerable amount of effort from a lot of people to deliver a complete manuscript.

I couldn't ask for a more supportive and loving family. I would like to extend a very special thank you to my wife, Suzanne. Without your support, I never could have completed this book. You supported my decision to write this book even though you were pregnant with our first child when I signed the contracts and you gave birth to our son, Colin Patrick Short, toward the beginning of the project.

I would also like to thank my son Colin for being such a good little proofreader as he quietly sat in my lap as I typed, at least for the first 15 to 30 minutes. Now that the book is done, Daddy has much more time to play!

I have the unique opportunity to work for Microsoft but still enjoy the sunshine and the great skiing that Colorado has to offer. I would like to thank the Microsoft Rocky Mountain District management team for supporting my efforts. Specifically, I would like to thank Catharine Morris for your creativity in making this happen. Jim Sargent, Larry Shaw, Laura Neff, and Scott Johnson, without your support, this project would never have gotten off the ground. Catharine and Jim, good luck with your new positions at corporate. I miss you both!

I work with a very talented group of peers in Colorado and throughout Microsoft. Of those, I would like to thank Michel Barnett and Joe Hildebrand for your peer reviews of the first couple of chapters and Karsten Januszewski for reviewing the Discovery chapter.

I would also like to thank Mike Howard and Peter Roxburg. Your contributions to the manuscript directly affected getting this book in the hands of the readers in a timely fashion. Thank you both for reading my nagging e-mails about topics I wanted covered in your material.

I would also like to thank the Microsoft Press project team. You guys have been incredibly supportive throughout the entire project. David Clark and I met early on to discuss potential projects. David, thank you for thinking of me when the opportunity to write the Web services title presented itself. Kathleen Atkins was the enforcer. Kathleen, thank you for taking on the unenviable task of ensuring that I didn't slip the schedule too much. Dail Magee Jr. helped ensure the technical accuracy of the content. Dail, thank you for your colorful commentary in the edited text. I too believe that “the publishing industry went astray when it stopped using scrolls.” Ina Chang had the responsibility of transforming my raw material into prose.

Through the course of the project, there were quite a few late nights in which I found myself staring at my computer screen completely exhausted and unmotivated. During these times, I would often fire up my Web browser and look at Jeff Prosise's Book Blog (http://www.wintellect.com/about/instructors/prosise/blog/), his online diary of the book-writing experience. Reading through a couple of entries always seemed to provide motivation to crank out a few more pages. Jeff, thank you for your inspiration as well as taking the time to give me advice now and then.

Finally I would also like to thank all of the folks in the product group for their support with this project. You all gave me the best material in the industry to write about. Specifically, I would like to thank Keith Ballinger, Rob Howard, Karsten Januszewski, Angela Mills, Jonathan Hawkins, Peter de Jong, Scott Guthrie, and Oliver Sharp.