how to create login control???

i am designing a composite web control that has that if the user is authenticated and loged in shows something like " welcome <username > , sing out " and if not authenticated shows something like "log in"
so the questions are >>

1. how can i retreive the authenitication cookie of that session ( it of course exists if user has before been authenticated )

2. then i have to send the user identity that we got to the user to the custom control, in which event of the form should we do that ? ( the event should be after getting the cookie , and before rendering the custom control )

and generally asking, whats the difference between a formsauthenticationticket class, with a normal cookie? what does it have more?


thanks for your time ...

i got the answer for the first Q, we can use the forms FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName Property then get the cookie and then decrypt and use the formsauthenticationticket, can anyone help me out with the second question?!