txbakers - 8:29 pm on Oct 19, 2004 (gmt 0)

I was living on a pacific island far from home and wanted to show pictures to family. So I started with geocities and tripod and angelfire with their editors and learned as I went.

Then I decided to take my small publishing business online and see what "e-commerce" was all about. It was mostly training for me since I never sold much, but I learned about CGI/Perl scripts, flash, and dreamweaver.

That complex site impressed someone at an interview, and I was hired by a company to deal with their web reporting software called Actuate. I became fluent in ASP and JSP and reading from databases.

Then I had a great idea for an on-line software application for a niche market and set about really learning ASP and databases. Took me a year of writing before it was on the market, and after three years on the market I'm just about to start doing it full time.

What began as a hobby has given me the tools to be creative and entrepreneurial. it's a puzzle to solve, and I'm continually making improvements and learning.

And I can do it in my bathrobe and fluffy slippers.

I carry no inventory, have minimal overhead, and deposit checks every day.

I love it!