About Kim Cavanaugh
Yup, that's me over there. Which proves either:
A. I am a male, despite my name, or,
B. I am a singularly unattractive woman.
Now that we're clear on that, let's move on.
I am a native of south Florida, and currently live in West Palm Beach. Although my time in college and the Army took me away from home for 10 years, I've otherwise been living in the land of sunshine, Africa-hot summers, and early bird specials all my life.
I am currently on Career 3.1. After working full-time as a web design teacher for the Palm Beach County School District I moved up the career ladder and now work at the district office where I am responsible for web stuff in general, and our Learning Tools web site in particular. Career 1.0 saw me in the Army as a Field Artillery officer for 6 years. In Career 2.0 I spent 10 years running the family business, designing and building custom furniture and cabinets.
In 1996 my classroom had the first Internet connection in our county installed and I became fascinated with the Web and all of the incredible things that could be done and found with this "new" technology. Working as a social studies teacher at that time, I quickly had my students communicating with kids all over the world, designing very simple reports for publication on-line, and generally digging into this very cool communication medium.
It wasn't long until I wanted to learn more about publishing on-line, and so I began playing with software for creating web pages, which eventually led me to the tools from Macromedia Inc. After getting a little information under my belt I asked for permission to begin developing a course in web design, which our school began offering in 1998.
The one thing that I found frustrating about the experience was the lack of good solid reference materials for my course, and masochist that I am, I decided to begin writing my own. Ultimately that led me to attempt publication of my work, and lo and behold, I was able to find a publisher willing to work with me. My two books from Osborne/McGraw-Hill on Dreamweaver and Fireworks came out just about the time that the dot-com world was fizzling and computer books in general took a nose dive along with the bust. I've always been blessed with impeccable timing.
Still, I'm continuing with my writing and as of March 2006 my fourth book was published, Dreamweaver 8 Visual Encyclopedia from Wiley Press, co-written with the impeccable Sheri German. Pick one up today, won't you?
Despite my failure to achieve fame and fortune in the book publishing biz, I've continued to write about web design and currently am a partner with CommunityMX, where I write tutorials and articles about Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, and Contribute. My love of writing has led to this little venture where I get a chance to talk about the web design world, but also dip my toes into writing about other odds and ends as the muse falls upon me.
I am blessed to be married to a fabulous woman and to have a delightful daughter to liven up the times when I drag myself away from the computer.
Want to contact me? Send an email to kim+the usual at sign+brainfrieze.net.