My descent into IT has been a strange one. When I left school, the Mac still had not been released, GUI was what happened to the back of the fridge if you didn't clean it, and you put a log on the fire while cooking up some bacon and some beans. I went to the UK, gained a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, and tried to enter the work force around the time of the '87 stock market crash.

Trying to enter the workforce with a Chemistry degree was not a lot of fun, so I a friend and I started a desktop publishing company and a couple of magazines.

Then I got an Internet addiction. I didn't start on the hard stuff - first I tried things like Gopher, Archie and UUPC. Soon I was hand coding HTML and writing a content management system in AppleScript. Then someone got me to try Linux. Pretty soon I was no longer a recreational user. I was hooked.

These days, people are much more accepting of those with afflictions like mine (though I do think they would rather I joined Linux Anonymous), and realize we can play a useful role in society. I have worked in Government Departments, one of New Zealand's largest insurance companies, a phone company, and many smaller businesses and organizations. My most recent permanent role was in an academic library in Cambodia.

But I am still not cured. Like many other sufferers, I am still living with the Internet. Taking it one install at a time.