The observant among you will have noticed that last week's article – Basic ActionScript for Designers – was by a new name to DMXzone; Sas Jacobs.

You're going to be seeing Sas's name on a lot more articles (and maybe see her at some forthcoming conferences), so we thought we'd give DMXzone readers a chance to find out a little more about who she is, what she does and ask is everything possible?

Sas Jacobs: Flash Possibilities

DMXzone: Hi Sas, Thanks for agreeing to subject yourself to the DMXzone hot seat, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Sas Jacobs: Hi. I've got an unusual background; I have qualifications in Accounting and in Human Resource Management. I set up an IT training business in 1994 and discovered the Web in 1997. I fell in love with dynamic Web sites and haven't wanted to do anything else since.

My business, Anything Is Possible, focuses on applications development and training but I've worked as a technical editor and writer. You can see examples of the work I've done at http://www.aip.net.au/. Recently, I've been lucky enough to have been invited to speak about Flash at several conferences. In fact, I'm off to FlashEurope and Media Elements 2004 in November to speak about Flash and XML.

DMXzone: I'm always intrigued as to how people pick up skills and make career transitions. How did you move from IT training to the Web – via self-teaching or did you attend some courses?

SJ: When I started learning about the Web, there weren't any training courses, so all my skills were self-taught. Don't forget, this was a time when everyone got excited about coloured backgrounds on Web pages (I'm showing my age here)! Since then, I've continued to teach myself new skills, as I need them. You should see my technical library – it's huge!

Now that I've been working in the Web area for a while, I find that there aren't any training courses suitable for me. I've joined with some of my colleagues to start working on some web-based Master Classes to remedy this situation in the Flash area.

DMXzone: Is there any story behind Anything is Possible? It's a lovely hopeful name.

SJ: When I first set up my business, I was doing a lot of database development, as well as training, and people didn't seem to be aware of how technology could be used to help them in their business. My idea was to show them that there were probably lots of possibilities that they hadn't thought of, and that's still true for my clients today. Besides, I like the positive feel of the name.

DMX: What technologies do you tend to work with when developing for the web?

SJ: I have worked with PHP in the past but tend to get more work now in ASP and ASP.NET. I've used MySQL, Access, SQL Server and Oracle and I've also built XML-based applications. Wherever possible, I try to persuade my clients that Flash is a great choice for their user interface. Don't get me started about how wonderful Flash is.

DMXzone: Again I'm intrigued – such a wide range of skills. How do you pick them all up – are they client led and you pick up a book when you come up against the technology, or have you targeted a technology to pick up new clients?

SJ: I think it's a little of both. If a client requests something and I know what they've requested is possible but don't yet have the skills, I'm up front with them. I tell them that I haven't worked in the area before, but that it isn't difficult. Then I've just got to learn the skills. I am also clear that I won't take jobs that lie outside my broad area of expertise. For example, I wouldn't take on a Java job because I couldn't deliver.

I purposely targeted ASP and ASP.NET as using those technologies allows me to work with larger clients, who also have the most money to spend!