I owe a debt of gratitude to Steve Anglin, Asst Editorial Director for his initial acceptance of my book, and for giving me an opportunity to create this work. I am highly grateful to the whole team at Apress for their constant cooperation and contribution to the creation this book. My gratitude goes out to Matthew Moodie who, as a Development Editor, offered a significant amount of feedback that helped to improve the chapters. He played a vital role in improving the structure and quality of the information.

I must thank Massimo Nardone, the technical reviewer, for his excellent detailed reviewing of the work and the many helpful comments and suggestions he made. Special thanks to Candace English, the copy editor, for her first class structural and language editing. I appreciate her efforts in enhancing the contents of the book and giving it a polished look. Big and ongoing thanks to Kelly Moritz, Coordinating Editor, for doing a great job, and for her sincere efforts with the whole team to get the book published on time. A great big thank you to the editorial and production staff and the entire team at Apress who worked tirelessely to produce this book. Really, I enjoyed working with each of you. I am also thankful to my family – my small world: Anu (my wife) and my two little darlings: Chirag and Naman for allowing me to work on the book, even during the time that I was supposed to spend with them.

I should not forget to thank my dear students, who have been good teachers for me. They allow me to understand the basic probelms they face in a subject, and enable me to directly address those problem topics. The endless interesting queries of my students helped me in writing this book with a practical and focused approach.