Dockx - Managing Data and Media in Silverlight 4: A mashup of chapters from Packts bestselling Silverlight books

Gastn C. Hillar has been working with computers since he was eight. He began programming with the legendary Texas TI-99/4A and Commodore 64 home computers in the early 80s.

He has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Sciencegraduated with honorsand an MBA (Masters in Business Administration)graduated with an outstanding thesis. He worked as a developer, architect, and a project manager for many companies in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Now, he is an independent IT consultant and a freelance author always looking for new adventures around the world. He also works with electronics (he is an electronics technician). He is always researching about new technologies and writing about them. He owns an IT and electronics laboratory with many servers, monitors, and measuring instruments.

Gastn wrote the C# 2008 and 2005 Threaded Programming: Beginner's Guide also published by Packt.

He is also the author of more than 40 books in Spanish about computer science, modern hardware, programming, systems development, software architecture, business applications, balanced scorecard applications, IT project management, the Internet, and electronics.

He contributes to Dr. Dobb's Go Parallel programming portal http://www.ddj.com/go-parallel/ and he is a guest blogger at Intel Software Network http://software.intel.com

He usually writes articles for Spanish magazines Mundo Linux, Solo Programadores, and Resistor.

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 a .NET architect at Ordina (http://www.ordina.be/). He is passionate about .NET and always plays 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, and 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. He organizes the yearly Community Day event in Belgium and 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, and HTML5). His main focus is on all things related to 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, such as 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 and 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, he 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 in 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 10 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. He also dabbles in game development utilizing Silverlight and maintains a blog detailing his exploits into the development world here: http://www.cameronalbert.com.