Maarten van Stam holds a B.Sc in Computer science (graduation in 1996, HIO, The Hague, The Netherlands) and worked as a software engineer for over 20 years. He started programming dBase and Clipper (DOS) systems in the early 80s, followed by Pascal and C++ in the late 80s, C++/VB "for Windows" in the early 90s, and continues to program in VB.NET and C# as part of the Microsoft's .NET Framework.
Maarten has specialized in Office development, .NET, and VSTO and has received the Microsoft MVP award in the expertise area of Visual Developer—VSTO for voluntarily sharing expertise with others. In addition to this role, Maarten takes part in several TAP Programs, beta tests, software design reviews, and advisory councils for software tools such as Visual Studio Team System and Microsoft Office. In addition to working in the software business professionally, Maarten is also an organizational member of the Software Development Network, currently the largest developer community group in the Netherlands (www.sdn.nl).
Besides tech reading this book, Maarten also reviewed Visual Studio Tools for Office 2007: VSTO for Excel, Word, and Outlook by Packt Publishing, authored by Eric Carter and Eric Lippert, Maarten's insights can be read and followed on www.maartenvanstam.nl, where you can find his blog that relates to all aspects of software development.
Vivek Thangaswamy is a software solutions developer and technical author living and working in the pleasant surroundings of Chennai, India. His range of technical competence stretches across platforms and lines of business, but he specializes in Microsoft Enterprise application architectures and Microsoft Server-based product integrations. Vivek is currently working for the world's largest software services company in Microsoft Technologies. He holds several Microsoft certifications and Microsoft MVP awards. He has a wide range of technology experience. Vivek started programming in a DOS world, then moved to C, C++, VC++, VB 6, ASP 3.0; and eventually to .NET in both VB.NET and C# worlds and also in ASP.NET/MS SQL Server 2005. He has a very good experience in Enterprise Collaboration Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 accompanied with the VSTO and .NET 3.0 frameworks. He started working in SharePoint from version 2003. Currently working with Windows Workflow Foundations and Windows Communication Foundations, he has very good exposure to Microsoft Commerce Server and Performance Point Server. Apart from Microsoft Technologies, Vivek has an expertise in PHP, ColdFusion, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. He has UI design skills using Photoshop and Flash, and has major interest in exploring open source technologies and innovating through them. He has completed his Bachelor of Technology degree in Information Technology from one of the world's finest universities and is currently pursuing the Management of Business Administration in Finance degree.
Vivek has also authored the book VSTO 3.0 for Office 2007 Programming by Packt Publishing (http://www.packtpub.com/vsto-3-for-office-2007-programming/book), which released in March 2009.
David M. Wenning is a hospital pharmacist. His interest in computer technology dates back to graduate school in the 1970s. He became interested in applying computer technology to pharmacy practice, and took elective courses in programming languages and business computing. In the early 1980s, the IBM PC was released and he purchased one of the first ones available. The computer became an indispensable tool in both, his professional and personal lives.
Next came the Internet. Already a weather hobbyist, he had a yen to publish his weather station data to the Web. He became aware of the Microsoft Office Live Small Business platform and took them up on their offer for a free website under their beta testing program. It quite turned out to be the right choice for him. He had a good understanding of computer technology, but no familiarity with web design or construction. Office Live made the process easy and he has been using the service for nearly three years now.
David is an active participant in the OLSB Community forum and a member of the Community Council, which he considers as an opportunity to provide feedback and input into the development of the platform.