I was born in East York in 1975.  I remember playing on my brother’s VIC-20 and Amiga, and then for years I had a computer with a black screen and orange text that didn’t have any games, so I lost interest.

When I was 21 my roommates and I shared a 386 that our housemate, Mike Bloom, found in the garbage and fixed up for us. We took turns writing school essays on the computer in the living room, and I for the most part just tried to get through my assignments and film school in general.

Fast-forward to many years and many jobs later…for me now, making films or video or interactive art…all of these things are just versions of the same thing – the same thing, which is making things. I feel lucky to have the time and energy to make things.

Speaking of, this year I am finally finishing a short video, thanks to friends and acquaintances:
Maurizio Chen – shooter extraordinaire
Kristiina Szabo – animator / ad-hoc cinematographer
Santosh Isaac – special effects whiz
Tricia Hagoriles – super colorist
Sandro Perri – an accomplished musician who graciously helped me with my sound mix
Yshia Wallace – actor / painter
Michelle Tse – lawyer / novelist / actor
Holly Skinner – dj /actor
Adam Linthewaite – camera / sound assistant
Elizabeth Willing – my kindly neighbour

Recommendations

Here is a list of things I have found helpful when it comes to web development and programming:

WordPress Hosting

Hostgator

Reliable, affordable, and dependable shared hosting for WordPress. Hostgator has online chat that will help you in an instant.

Korax

If your WordPress site starts getting a little more traffic than you planned, use Korax.

Domains

Yahoo Domains

Affordable and easy to use. Great if you’ve never had a domain before.

Actionscript

Learning Actionscript 3.0

It’s like Lee Brimelow says…the best book on Actionscript ever. Great for designers just getting into Actionscript 3.0

Foundation Actionscript 3.0 Animation

After three years, I still refer to this book. A great introduction to Flash physics.

Object-oriented programming

John Lindquist’s YouTube Channel

This man seriously cares about teaching you design patterns for Actionscript 3.0. I mean, he seriously seriously cares. Clear, concise, and practical.

Head First Design Patterns

Great for visual learners. For those of us who didn’t go to school for computer science. Lots of pictures!

WordPress

Pods CMS and PODS UI

Speaking from personal experience…don’t use custom fields when you can use pods. Great tutorials on pods cms are available here.

Gravity forms

If you clients wants a form, use this.

Disqus

A great tool for managing WordPress comments. Simply the best. You will be up and running within minutes.