It has been a nice journey and a pleasant experience writing my first book.
First of all, I would like to thank the chief .NET editor of Apress—Ewan Buckingham—for keeping trust in me and giving me an opportunity to write this unique book on Silverlight. Special thanks to Kylie Johnston for keeping this aggressive project on track; to Matthew Moodie and Fabio Claudio Ferracchiati for their thorough technical review, technical editing, and valuable guidance; to Ami Knox for copyediting; to Kelly Gunther for shepherding the project through production; and to the other Apress team members who worked on my book. Without positive support from the Apress team, I could never have achieved this goal.
I would also like to thank Jay Nanavaty, an independent senior consultant and my brother-in-law. Without his significant contribution and dedicated support in the development of the Silverlight Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) for Chapters 2 and 5, it would be very challenging for me to finish the book in the given timeframe.
With blessings from God and encouragement from my grandparents, parents, and in-laws, I was able to accomplish this task successfully. My wife, Pratixa, and two little sons, Gyan (5 years old) and Anand (8 months old), have positively supported my long hours of work (including most of the weekends). I thank my family for their unbelievable cooperation and encouragement and for keeping their faith in me during this challenging time.