I'm Kate, you can call me Kate or Sie. I'm a twenty-year-old New Jersey native, and no, I don't have a silly accent! I work as a restaurant server and I go to school full time, though I'm not in pursuit of anything in particular. I'm not exactly sure where I'm headed but I'm not incredibly worried about that just yet. I think I might be interested in becoming a tattoo artist—but according to the rest of the world I should finish some kind of a degree before I pursue something so frivolous. ;) I've been happily attached to my boyfriend, Drew, for almost two years.
I've been breathing computers since I got one for Christmas in 1999 and I've been doing webdesign pretty much since I started on the internet, if you can call the MIDI-laden, sparkly-GIF covered Geocities and Homestead sites I had as a young teenager "designed." I learned pretty quick, though, and ever since I was fiddling in a graphical page editor and figured out how to "code" a marquee in the manual editor I was obsessed with HTML code and learning how to make things on the internet. I am self-taught in HTML and CSS, I started learning Photoshop around the same time. I'm still using 7.0 like I learned on, though I have tinkered a bit with CS1 and CS2. My real love for computers is firmly rooted in hardware, and I love taking computers apart and putting them back together again (though I am not mechanically inclined in any other way, ha!).
Notes:
Feel free to hit me up on AIM if you have questions or if you'd just like to chat. I'm friendly and I don't bite! Please note that I have a tendency to wander away from the computer without an away message up, so anything important should be sent to my e-mail address. Spam or harassment will be met with severe violence! ;]
AOL IM: the sleepy glow
Yahoo! IM: zerozero129 (online by request only)
E-mail: katew@digital-bonsai.com
• 2002 - 2007 — Founder and administrator for the role-playing game,
Bleeding Souls. Primary graphic designer and programmer for the website and forums. Bleeding Souls'
deviantART archive and
older archive has screenshots of many of my layouts, credited as 00129 or Sie.
• 2002 - 2006 — Enrolled in various computer programs during technology-oriented high school career at the Union County
Academy for Information Technology. Basic knowledge of Java programming;
Oracle 9i Introduction to SQL (1Z0-007) certification;
Microsoft Office Specialist certification for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint; experience with Microsoft Office Access; and
CompTIA A+ Hardware and Operating Systems certifications were mandatory for graduation.
• 2004 - 2005 — Placed in Oracle Education Foundation's
ThinkQuest competition, which challenged teams of students to design functional, aesthetically pleasing web sites which also presented cited content for a targeted age group. My team of three classmates chose the significance and function of clothing throughout the ages in different cultures.
Cultural Fashions, our Best in Category winner for October 2004. I designed the site, developed content from our research, and drew the illustrations for the clothing styles. The Rome: Live! mini-game was also my invention.
• 2004 - 2006 — Employed with aforementioned high school's technology department during the summer and after school during the academic year. Duties involved shunting ancient, obese machines cross-campus, fiddling with networks, and and dealing with the problems the real tech guys didn't want to deal with. On a serious note, the job provided an intimate knowledge of Norton's Ghost program as well as extensive experience troubleshooting a wide variety problems with software, hardware, and networking.
• 2005 - 2006 — Worked in a group setting with three classmates under the name Axis Technology Integration as part of our Technology Integration class curriculum. We designed a few websites and one database for use by actual clients involved in small businesses and volunteer work.
Cindy Smith Dance Studio still uses our site design, for example. The design and graphics of the site are my creations.
