I feel so fortunate to live in Vermont and run my own business where I get to meet and work with creative, wonderful people like Gale and Libby. What started out as a quick 'jump-start' lesson on Gale's new iBook developed into the idea of developing a Web site where Gale can share her articles with a whole new audience — school age children and adults alike. It's been a wonderful collaborative effort and we had a lot of fun seeing everything come together.

Stepping back — I was born and raised in New York City, Canarsie Brooklyn to be exact, but always felt home in Vermont and made plans to find my way here in September of 1998. I now reside with my husband of over 17 years in what is affectionately known as the Mad River Valley. We always felt a connection to the children of China and decided to grow our family through adoption. We used a wonderful agency, Chinese Children Adoption International who we'd recommend without hesitation.

Since 1986, I've been working in the Graphic Arts and Printing Industry. I had put myself through college while working full-time as a mechanical artist for a publishing company in New York. At the time, I didn't have the confidence to pursue my desire to study art and hone my skills as an illustrator and painter. So, the practical side of me decided to study to become an English Teacher — that's until I was introduced to the Macintosh and Adobe Illustrator. You can say it was love at first sight! I was thrilled with its potential and have been finding new ways to work with it ever since. Along the way I have worked for some terrific companies that afforded me opportunities to travel the US and Vancouver BC to both learn and teach at companies and events such as Adobe, Creo, Agfa, and MacWorld.

In Spring of 2000, I ventured out on my own and formed my own company — MAC NAC, LLC — it's an acronym for MAC Network and Application Consulting. I travel to businesses and homes throughout most of the Central Vermont area. I help small companies and individuals with everything from basic installs and network configurations to advanced training in professional desktop applications such as: Adobe Photoshop; Adobe GoLive; Adobe Illustrator; and QuarkXPress to name a few.

I also launched my design site — www.North100.com — outlining my design services for both the WWW and print. If you would like more information about any of my services you certainly can reach me at loida@North100.com or 802.496-5565 — I'd love to hear from you.