Doug Lowe has been writing computer programming books since the guys who invented Java were still in high school. He’s written books on COBOL, Fortran, Visual Basic, IBM mainframe computers, mid-range systems, PCs, Web programming, and probably a few he’s forgotten about. He’s the author of more than 30 For Dummies books, such as Networking For Dummies, 7th Edition, Networking For Dummies All-in-One Desk Reference, 2nd Edition, ASP.NET Everyday Applications For Dummies, and Word 2007 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies. He lives with his wife and the youngest of his three daughters in that sunny All-American City Fresno, California, where the motto is, “It’s a sunny, All-American City.” He’s also one of those obsessivecompulsive decorating nuts who puts up tens of thousands of lights at Christmas and creates computer-controlled Halloween decorations that rival Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Maybe his next book should be Tacky Holiday Decorations For Dummies.

Barry Burd received an M.S. degree in Computer Science at Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Illinois. As a teaching assistant in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, he was elected five times to the university-wide List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by their Students.
Since 1980, Dr. Burd has been a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. When he’s not lecturing at Drew University, Dr. Burd leads training courses for professional programmers in business and industry. He has lectured at conferences in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia. He is the author of several articles and books, including Java For Dummies and Ruby on Rails For Dummies, both from Wiley Publishing, Inc.