About the Author

William Smith has been writing on software since 1988, when his parents asked him to make a choice between a school-sponsored trip to Europe (which his elder sister was enjoying at the time), or a computer. Although accused of being short-sighted, William chose the computer and he firmly believes he got the better deal. He began writing about software on the Tandy 1000 SL/2 using Turbo C++ and has been hooked on the technology ever since.

He began his professional career in the environmental field eight years later with degrees in Environmental Science and Business Administration. While working in this field full-time, he started his first business focused on installing and managing small commercial networks and websites. In this role, he saw a need for specialized network analysis tools, so he learned VB.NET and wrote simple console applications for his own use. From there, he continued writing applications as a hobbyist before returning to the University of Maryland for a second Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. While still completing the Computer Science program, he was offered a position with a software development firm based in Pittsburgh, PA, where he spent the next few years working with .NET and Xamarin developing iOS applications. As a result of this experience, he was asked to be a technical reviewer for iOS Development with Xamarin Cookbook, Dimitris Tavlikos, Packt Publishing.

William currently works for GIS Inc. in Birmingham, AL, as a Geospatial Developer specializing in native mobile application development. He also owns Websmiths, LLC (www.websmithsllc.com), a consulting firm concentrating on cross-platform mobile application development using Xamarin Studio.

He lives in wild and wonderful West Virginia with his beautiful wife and four sons. He enjoys hunting and fishing with his family, and he still hasn't been to Europe.

I want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for giving me the opportunity to write this book. I would also like to thank my wife Dorothy for her support and my family for their patience with me as I completed this work.