About

Welcome!   My name is Jane and I am the owner of this site and blog. I grew up in the midwest and currently live in Florida. Oh the sunshine state! (???)

I keep busy with my site www.jatoservices.com and learning new and different things daily. Never stop learning!!     My partner in crime, Maggie Mae will be helping me.  You can see her here to the right, she is a very busy little dog. Her energy is endless, well, almost….   She manages to make me laugh and smile every day, even when sometimes this world seems so rotten. Thank you MM!

Let's not forget the newest Diva in the household, her name is Miz Bella.

How I got interested in web design

Back in 1993, around Christmas time, I was given a line of $1500 credit by Sears complete with a brand new shiny credit card. I had never had a credit card at that point (and eventually would not have another one for many years…!). This was back in the days when you couldn't wait to have the mail carrier deliver your brand new Sears catalogue right to your door. They didn't charge you for the catalogue, they just gave it to you.

Needless to say, I sat down with my new catalogue that day and my shiny new Sears credit card and let my fingers do the walking. Now keep in mind, back then, the computers were very expensive compared to today. I promptly spent the majority of that line of credit on a new computer that Sears would in one week, deliver right to my doorstep. I didn't even have to leave the house. 

The day that computer came, I took everything out of the box and set it up on my kitchen table. I plugged in cables where it looked like they should go (who reads directions??) and wa-laa! I had a computer. How to operate it was a different story. 

I look back now and have to laugh because I was so stupid, I turned it on and waited, and waited, punched a few buttons every now and then, and all I got was a pretty blue screen. Several hours of trying everything I could think of, I finally read the directions but to no avail. Just as I had reached the point where I had decided that Sears had sent me a piece of junk and was beginning to pack it back up, there was a knock on my front door.

I opened the door and there was my cousin and her husband who I had not seen in several years. After all the hugs and how ya' been's, her husband saw the computer on the table and asked about it. I proceeded to explain how Sears had sent me a piece of junk that didn't work and he asked if he could take a look at it. Little did I realize, he was at that time, working as a computer tech and salesperson. He fiddled around for a little while as my cousin and I caught up on things and then he said to me, "I really don't know HOW you did it… but somehow you have managed to erase Windows off of the hard drive…"

Which of course meant nothing to me as I had no clue what "windows" was….

He happened to have his own copy in the trunk of the car which he graciously installed on my new computer and I was up and running. 

Several years later, I was in Comp Usa looking for who knows what, and I stumbled upon their "Bargain Bin Books." One of those books caught my eye. It was a huge, blue covered book, HTML 4 by Laura Lamay.  I bought the book for $10. I remember seeing on the back cover that the original retail price was $30 and thinking that was a huge amount for a book (back then) and had it not been marked down, I never would have purchased it. I took that book home and have never looked back.

There have been many other books since that one, but that is where it all started. Thank you Laura Lamay!