Acknowledgments N o author can complete a book without a small army of helpful individuals. I'm deeply indebted to the whole Apress team, including Sofia Marchant and Laura Esterman, who shep- herded this second edition through production, Kim Wimpsett, who speedily performed the copy edit, and many other individuals who worked behind the scenes indexing pages, drawing figures, and proofreading the final copy. I also owe a special thanks to Gary Cornell, who always offers invaluable advice about projects and the publishing world. Christophe Nasarre deserves my sincere thanks for his unfailingly excellent and insightful tech review comments--they've helped me to fill gaps and improve the overall quality of this book. I'm also thankful for the legions of die-hard bloggers on the various WPF teams, who never fail to shed light on the deepest recesses of WPF. I encourage anyone who wants to learn more about the future of WPF to track them down. Finally, I'd never write any book without the support of my wife and these special individuals: Nora, Razia, Paul, and Hamid. Thanks, everyone! xxiv