Acknowledgments

Todd Brown thanks:

Writing about an operating system that is new to the world can be pretty tedious, because there is very little solid information on the subject. Oh, there is a great deal of hype, but little solid information. So I needed to depend on a lot of people to cover my backside while I worked.

As usual, my wife DaRhonda is the first to thank. She kind of plays goalie around me while I work on these projects and keeps the problems out of my way. There are things that go on in my world that I don't even realize until I step away from the computer. By then she has already handled them. She makes it possible for me to do the extra work.

I would like to thank the great people at Sams Publishing for the opportunity to work on this project: Don Roche, who was my champion at Sams and who kept the faith, and Clint McCarty, who has kept me between the margins and put up with me in a few spoiled author moments. I hope I work with them all again soon.

As is tradition for me, I'd like to thank my grandfather (William O. Newton), who said, "I am not the smartest man in the world, but I know where the books are." No more profound words have ever been spoken to me. Here's one more, Grandpa…

Chris Miller thanks:

I would like to thank my wife, Jennifer. It really wouldn't be worth the effort without her in my life. I would also like to thank Darrin Canter, one of my co-workers, for the suggestion to use VMWare to capture setup screen shots. I'd also like to thank all of the people I work with at GeoAccess for making my day job a whole lot of fun and paying me to do the kinds of things that I like to do.

Keith Powell thanks:

The Acquisitions Editor, Don Roche, for his patience and confidence in my ability to complete this work. Additional thanks goes to Clint McCarty for his excellent contributions as the Development Editor. I would also like to thank those persons who have helped me thus far through life, especially those in the following areas:

To Jack Langowski and Jerome McEvoy, who continue to push me toward new technologies that further my technical skills;

To Michael Durr, the greatest friend and attorney one could ever hope to have;

To Vannessa Tomlinson, someone who constantly lifts my sprits and encourages me to continue to write books;

And to Jerry Blaesing, who reminds me that there is still much to learn in the many facets of life.