Oh for more time! I have soooo much to do and, Arien that I am, want it all done now. I remember at drama school Ms Maas would NEVER mention the word "Time" - she'd just talk about "The Enemy". I thought she was nuts - now I know she was right. Older? Wiser?

Hmmmm - we'll see - looks like Blogger's working ok now that I haven't paid it any attention for a good couple of months! BUT not now...deadlines, deadlines, deadlines and a Christmas I am COMPLETELY unprepared for - so I'll have to make sure this is all working again after Santa's been.

Well - have been absolutely hectic and FINALLY come to spend a bit of time on my blog to find that I can't do much with it other than post. So I spend HOURS troubleshooting to no avail.

Now troubleshooting I don't mind - in fact I quite enjoy finding solutions - particularly with billions of global resources at hand. There's nothing quite like the sense of accomplishment after spending time trying to figure something out and being successful. These Eureka! moments have a lot to do with why I do what I do. But when that Eureka! moment doesn't come.... AAAAARGH!

This Blog is NOT supposed to look like this!!! Have scoured the ether for solutions, posted messages, email Blogger support...and nothing...nada! Muts be on the blogger.com side. So Blugger Blogger.com I say (as much as I hate to because I DO have an enormous sense of loyalty, admiration and all things gushy for Google).

Actually I'm not quite ready to blugger Blogger.com yet as I really don't feel like setting everything up all over again. So - hoping and praying that the friendly neighbourhood blogger, Vin, is going to be able to sort me out, and if not blugger blogger it will be. The "ultimate computer user" will give up. Stay posted - I'm giving it 24 hours!

What a week! Not only was the mountain that runs behind our little town of Hermanus ravaged by fire but we were also faced with the challenge of running businesses without power - and the horror that it's something we're going to have to get used to!

V, Vanessa, Vee, Venus.

Born in Durban, South Africa to…

The Planet Manager - leaving me little option but to be rational, objective & logical. She is a data-warehouser supreme. Some of my earliest memories are of waking up in the middle of the night, wrapped in a warm blanket next to a mainframe; watching wet cloth nappies being hung next to giant computers doing payroll runs and, my favourite, playing with punch cards!

and... GoGoGadget Guy, probably one of the first people to own a PC in Africa and the Epitome of an entrepreneur. I swore when I was a kid riding around on a Sunday looking at his billboards that I would never go into advertising and ended up in the ad industry for 10 years. It’s also thanks to his policy of RTM (Read the Manual) that I’ve read most of the Windows manuals since v3.1 and learned how our favourite tools think.

Raised in eGoli (the city of Gold) – Johannesburg where I learned to work hard and play hard.

Privileged to have lived in Yeoville, a vibrant suburb, the first ‘grey’ area in South Africa. (i.e. where people of different races lived in the same area). It was still illegal then but the powers that were seemed to turn a blind eye to it because it was mainly a whole lot of artists, actors, musicians and journalists. I’ve heard it’s changed – but that is another story.

Privileged to have been able to vote for Madiba and been a young adult in both South Africa’s.

Moved to esCape Town, Stellenbosch and then soon after to Hermanus – a village on the southern Cape coast famous for having the best land-based whale watching in the World! Never thought a city girl like me would adapt to a town with three traffic lights – but I have – like a duck to water!

Now? A confirmed workaholic, almost 40, mother of 3 gorgeous boys, wife to beloved Blue. Living between a Mountain and the Big Blue Sea. My family ensures that I remain a master multi-tasker.

8 years ago I found my niche. Developing websites allows me to use the marketing, computer and design skills I have gathered over the years all at once and I’ve gained a reputation for creating simple and effective websites that work!

I think I bring a lot to the techno table – I’m probably the ultimate end-user:

• I had my Username (V67@pixie.co.za) and Password ready and waiting 6 months before the Internet was launched in South Africa.


• I remember using Winsock and Netscape to connect to Bulletin Boards and read email. So Exciting!!!


• I remember when cell phones were bricks and designing in Corel v.2 which came on Floppy Disks – not Stiffies – REAL Floppies!


• I remember being thrilled when I got an optical drive and didn’t have to zip large files across 15 stiffies anymore.

This was probably at the same time the Google Guys were still in High School! And then there was Google! They truly changed the world.

I can’t quite believe it – I’ve been sitting in front of one of these machines for over 15 years. And I love it!

Here are some pics for the young 'uns...

This is a REAL Floppy disk - it could store a whopping 500 k!

This is what the first computer I ever used looked like - it had 128 k of RAM.

And this makes you laugh when you've been sitting in front of a computer for as long as I have.

And this is a fun link for all of you to see what your favourite website looked like 5 / 10 / 15 years ago - the Wayback Machine - check out Google in 1998...

Welcome to the workIT Blog! I've decided that this will be a far more interesting way of dealing with the "About Us" section of the workIT.co.za website.

This way you'll be able to get to know the person behind the business (moi) a lot more intimately than you would in an About Us blurb; AND I'll be able to add thoughts, tips, tricks, links, ideas, ramblings, pics and a whole lot of other, as yet unclassifiable, goodies on the fly!

I have spent over 6 months researching and testing products and customising them so that anyone who has a basic level of computer literacy will be able to:

• Create and manage their own website without it looking like a dogs breakfast.
• Have the tools and knowledge needed on hand to manage their websites themselves.
• Provide information and tools on how to market their websites themselves.
• Do all of this in a user-friendly and understandable way.
• Have a website that really works without breaking the bank.
  

• I was inspired by reaching a saturation point. I didn't have enough hours in a day and clients were waiting too long for simple changes to be made to their websites.
• I realised that a lot of my clients' computer literacy levels had improved tenfold since I first started working with them 8 years ago and, given the right tools, they would easily cope with creating and managing their own sites.
• I have an affinity with technology and a vast amount of user-knowledge that I'd really like to share.
• There are too many websites out there that give the Internet a bad name when in actual fact it is a PHENOMENAL tool. How many times have you heard "I have a website but it does nothing for my business."?
• There are FAR too many websites out there that are badly designed. I hate this! So often they have great content that you just don't want to read because the colours clash or you can't find your way around. There is no need for this - creating a nice looking, user-friendly website is quite straight forward.
• And last (but definitely not least) I'd like to be in a position where I spend most of my time sharing the knowledge I have and the new stuff I learn every day, helping more people to really get their websites working for them, choosing the projects I work on, AND still be able to feed my 3 kids!