About the Authors

Luke Welling is a lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. He chooses to use Open Source software whenever practical and evangelizes the advantages of this approach as widely as possible. He has spoken to audiences in Australia, North America, and Europe about MySQL, PHP, and other Open Source topics. He has taught a wide variety of technical topics to university students and professionals, but he specializes in Internet- related topics.

Laura Thomson is a lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She has taught a wide variety of courses with a Web and Internet focus and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Web Mining. She speaks at conferences around the globe and has delivered training at organizations as diverse as Ericsson and Lonely Planet. Previously, Laura has worked for Telstra and the Boston Consulting Group. She holds a first-class honors degree in Computer Systems Engineering and a degree (with distinction) in Computer Science. In her spare time, she rides her horses, feeds her menagerie of animals, and occasionally speaks to Luke about something nontechnical.