Back in 1987, my typewriter broke. A friend who worked in one of the new desktop publishing companies told me to not even think about getting another one. They had been rendered redundant and ridiculous. I hardly felt in a financial position to agree, but he cunningly brought home a Macintosh from his work, which was closed down for the Christmas break, and said "Use this for two weeks before you make up your mind".
I was absolutely hooked. Line and sinker. When the chance came to work from home I took redundancy from the prepress company I worked at, and spent all my money on a Mac Plus. I spent the next few months teaching myself all I could, and soon I had launched a free Auckland what's-on and opinion magazine (called Stamp) and I was doing desktop publishing privately, plus writing about music and wine.
I soon met Greg Vincent who had just started Parkside Publishing, and the rest is history - Greg launched NZ Classic Car magazine (which I designed for two years in my garden shed) and now the company is a major independent publisher with the titles NZ Performance Car magazine, Tone and NZ Macguide magazine also in the stable.