William R. Vaughn
Bill retired from Microsoft (in 2000) after 14 years to focus on mentoring, speaking, and writing. His specialty is data access application design especially when connecting to SQL Server. Bill has worked in the computer industry since 1972. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Mary Hardin-Baylor and a Master's degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Texas. He's also been awarded an Honorary PhD. from the University of Advancing Computer Technology in Tempe Arizona. Bill spent his early years working in the mainframe data processing industry and transitioned to the personal computer side in the late 70s. Along the way, he worked for the Texas DPS Narcotics Service, EDS (where he was recruited by and worked for Ross Perot), at Mostek/United Technologies, Challenge Systems, Digital Research, and CPT Corporation. After having surfed the PC industry for many years, he began his Microsoft years in 1986 working for the Windows developer liaison team at Microsoft in 1986. For the next 14 years, he worked in various divisions at Microsoft including Microsoft University, the Visual Basic documentation and Visual Studio marketing and Internal Technical Education teams before retiring in 2000 to form his own company, Beta V Corporation.

Bill has written seven editions of the popular Hitchhiker's Guide (the 4th, 5th and 6th published by Microsoft Press) and books for APress, including the bestseller ADO and ADO.NET Examples and Best Practices. Peter Blackburn and Bill also coauthored the Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services (Addison- Wesley). His latest work is Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server Everywhere-his first e-Book. He writes lead articles for SQL Server Magazine where he is a contributing editor, MSDN, and others. Bill also writes a bi-weekly editorial for Processor.COM magazine. Bill is a top-rated speaker at conferences worldwide, including keynotes and sessions at TechEd, DevWeek, Dev Connections, SQL Connections, VBUG, and many others - where his wit and no-holds-barred technical insights win him rave reviews. Bill is a Microsoft MVP.

Visual Studio Reporting
The inside scoop on how to get the most out of the new ReportViewer control and how it's evolved in Visual Studio 2008. This discusses how to leverage your Reporting Services skills and RDL reports to create application-based reports and how to manage the myriad of issues that come up when trying to emulate Reporting Services functionality like parameters, connections, pick-list population and much more. This session previews the SQL Server Reporting Services technology coming with SQL Server 2008.