Managing Data and Media in Microsoft Silverlight 4: A mashup of chapters from Packt's bestselling Silverlight books

Gaston C. Hillar is Italian and has been working with computers since he was 8 years old. Gaston has a Bachelor's degree in computer science (graduated with honors) and an MBA. Currently, Gaston is an independent IT consultant and a freelance author who is always looking for new adventures anywhere in the world. He was a senior contributing editor at Dr. Dobb's, and has written more than a hundred articles on software development topics. He has received the prestigious Intel Black Belt Software Developer award eight times. He has written many articles about Java for Oracle Java Magazine. Gaston was also a former Microsoft MVP in technical computing. He lives with his wife, Vanesa, and his two sons, Kevin and Brandon.

Gill Cleeren is Microsoft Regional Director (http://www.theregion.com), Silverlight MVP (former ASP.NET MVP) and Telerik MVP. He lives in Belgium where he works as .NET architect at Ordina (http://www.ordina.be/). Passionate about .NET, he’s always playing with the newest bits. In his role as Regional Director, Gill has given many sessions, webcasts and training on new as well as existing technologies, such as Silverlight, ASP.NET and WPF at conferences including TechEd Berlin 2010, TechDays Belgium – Switzerland - Sweden, DevDays NL, NDC Oslo Norway, DevReach Bulgaria, NRW Conference Germany, Spring Conference UK, Telerik Silverlight Roadshow in Sweden, Telerik RoadShow UK. He is the author of Packt’s Microsoft Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook and is also the author of many articles in various developer magazines and for SilverlightShow.net and he organizes the yearly Community Day event in Belgium. He also leads Visug (http://www.visug.be), the largest .NET user group in Belgium. You can find his blog at http://www.snowball.be and on Twitter by following @gillcleeren.

Kevin Dockx lives in Belgium and works at RealDolmen, one of Belgium's biggest ICT companies, where he is a 30-year old technical specialist/project leader on .NET web applications, mainly Silverlight, and a solution manager for Rich Applications (Silverlight, Windows Phone 7, WPF, Surface, HTML5). His main focus is on all things Silverlight, but he still keeps an eye on the new developments concerning other products from the Microsoft .NET (Web) Stack. As a Silverlight enthusiast, he's a regular speaker on various national and international events, like Microsoft DevDays in the Netherlands, Microsoft Techdays in Portugal, NDC Oslo Norway, and Community Day Belgium. He is the author of Packt’s Microsoft Silverlight 4 Data and Services Cookbook and also writes articles for various Silverlight-related sites & magazines. His blog, which contains various tidbits on Silverlight, .NET, and the occasional rambling, can be found at http://blog.kevindockx.com/, and you can find him on Twitter as well: @KevinDockx.

Todd Snyder has been a software developer/architect for over 16 years. During that time, he has spent several years as a consultant providing technical guidance and leadership for the development of enterprise class systems on the Microsoft Platform. At Infragistics, he is a principal consultant that focuses on the design and construction of RIA and n-tier based applications. Todd is the co-leader for the New Jersey .Net user group (http://www.njdotnet.net/) and is a frequent speaker at trade shows, code camps, and Firestarters.

Joel Eden, PhD has been working in the area of user experience and design methods for over 10 years. Currently a Senior Interaction Designer working on UX Tools at Infragistics, Joel spent three years in the Infragistics Services group, consulting for external clients. Prior to Infragistics, he worked at multiple design agencies in the Philadelphia area, as well as working at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Labs. Joel holds a B.S. in Computer Science, and a Ph.D in Information Science, both from Drexel University.

Jeffrey Smith has been a Visual Designer for six years. During that time he has been an Art Director at various agencies and studied special effects and animation at NYU. A convert from flash and flex he has been working with .NET technologies for the past two years, specializing in WPF and Silverlight. At Infragistics, he is an UX Visual Designer that focuses on the design, implementation and User Experience. You can view some of his work at http://www.thinksinkstudio.com.

Matthew Duffield is a .NET architect designing and developing enterprise applications. He specializes in .NET with an emphasis on WPF, Silverlight, and WP7 development. He is a Microsoft MVP in Client Application Development and has an MSCD.NET certification. He also works in business intelligence, designing and developing solutions for data warehouse and data mining initiatives. You can read his blog at mattduffield.wordpress.com and follow him on Twitter at @mattduffield.

Cameron Albert is an independent software development consultant with over ten years of experience, specializing in Microsoft technologies such as Silverlight, WPF, WCF, SQL Server and ASP.NET. Having worked in the medical, insurance and media/entertainment industries Cameron has been involved in a variety of development solutions featuring a broad range of technical issues. Cameron also dabbles in game development utilizing Silverlight and maintains a blog detailing his exploits into the development world here:  http://www.cameronalbert.com

Frank LaVigne has been hooked on software development since he was 12, when he got his own Commodore 64 computer. Since then, he's worked as developer for fi nancial fi rms on Wall Street and also in Europe. He has worked on various Tablet PC soluti ons and on building advanced user experiences in Silverlight and WPF. He lives in the suburbs of Washington, DC. He founded the CapArea.NET User Group Silverlight Special Interest Group and has been recognized by Microsoft as a Tablet PC MVP. He blogs regularly at www.FranksWorld.com.

Vibor Cipan is currently serving as the CEO and Partner of FatDUX Zagreb – a full service interactive UX and service design agency with offices around the world. Before joining FatDUX, Vibor worked at Microsoft Development Center in Copenhagen and before that, at Microsoft, Croatia. One thing, however, has stayed constant—his focus on user experience, service design, usability and information architecture. He has been awarded the prestigious title of 'Microsoft Most Valuable Professional' for three years in a row (and is still currently holding that title). He was the youngest awardee and the first one in the CEE, Europe to receive the award while being a full-time student.