Acknowledgments

Several fellow passengers on this writing roller coaster deserve special mention. This project would never have happened without the support and patience of my editor, Simon St.Laurent. He helped me through several proposals, refining and focusing the content of this book.

Regardless of a successful book proposal, I would never have pursued this project without the support of my loving wife. Her encouragement, patience, and enthusiasm kept me going to the end.

Technical reviewers for this book helped catch my mistakes and improve the content substantially. Thank you very much to all of them: Bart van den Eijnden, Darren Redfern, Jeff McKenna, Paul Ramsey, and Tom Kralidis. A handful of others helped answer my endless stream of questions. If you helped with even a yes/no question, it was appreciated.

I'm thankful for the support and encouragement I received from Dave McIlhagga and DM Solutions Group in general. It was a continual reminder that this book was necessary.

The developers of these tools deserve special recognition for their contributions to open source GIS and mapping. Without them, there wouldn't be much to write to about! I would also like to acknowledge the long-term support of the University of Minnesota and their willingness to let the MapServer community grow beyond their borders.

A significant amount of documentation already exists for MapServer. Without the efforts of many companies and volunteers, I would never have learned as much as I have about these great tools. Thank you, fellow authors. In no way does this book mean to downplay your efforts.

Several friends and colleagues have helped encourage me over the years. Without their encouragement to think outside the box and strive for something better, I doubt I'd be writing this today.

I spent way too many hours on IRC channels picking the brains of other chatlings. When email was just too slow, this help was much appreciated and allowed real-time assistance from the broader community.