Photo taken July 2005 in Australia.

Well, you clicked on 'hubby' so you must want to read about my husband Menno Berndsen.

Menno is an outdoor-type down-to-earth tall Dutch guy. He and I have been together since 1995, and we got married on the Thai island of Ko Samui in June 1999. Have a look at some of our wedding pictures.

It was because of him that I moved to Hong Kong in 1995, where he was working then, and together we have explored and enjoyed South-East Asia between 1995 and 2002. More on that, and a whole load of pictures, in the travel section of this site.

Menno's hobbies

When he's not working, Menno likes to be outside, in particular walking, cycling, fishing and gardening. In Singapore he went hiking in a nearby park almost daily, followed by a swim in the pool of our condo. Back in Holland, whenever the weather allowed it, he liked to go for bike rides and walks in the woods, and just enjoyed being outside in general.

Since we've been in Australia, Menno has seriously taken to fishing as his main hobby, which he enjoys tremendously. He started out knowing absolutely nothing about how best to fish, and the various fish found in the ocean here at different times of the year, but he has developed great fishing skills over time and he's now considered something of an expert!

Because I won't touch dead fish (or live ones, for that matter), he has had to learn how to prepare them too, and he has successfully tried out quite a few different fish recipes already. As long as the fish don't taste "fishy", I'll eat it, so he tends to use a lot of strong flavours such as chilli, garlic, ginger, etc. in his fish dishes, and some of his creations are very tasty, I have to say.

He's also become a bit of a workout freak - he goes to the gym about 4 times a week, and works out for up to 2 hours every time. He wants to stay fit and healthy, but he also likes eating and snacking, so he needs to be active to work it all off. Watching movies and playing computer games are some of his further interests, and we watch a lot of movies together, but I try to convince him not to play computer games too often because they're so addictive and ultimately a waste of time. And it's not like he's not already behind his computer the whole time anyway - as that's his job. Since we moved into our new house in Coffs Harbour in 2006, which has a garden, he has also taken up gardening and quite enjoys spending a few hours in the garden several times a week.

Menno's work

Menno is a creative multimedia/design professional with lots of experience in many different companies in various countries. His resume is really quite impressive. He started his own business, Triple W Communications, when we were living in Singapore, mostly creating corporate websites for clients worldwide.

Menno in Spakenburg, Holland in August 2001.

Menno sells his programs online via the Mix-FX and Anim-FX websites and the Amara Software website, and more tools are likely to follow, but he always has more ideas in his head than he can realise. There are only 24 hours in a day, and he already spends around 10 of those behind his computer daily.

His Amara Flash software tools are inexpensive and easy to use programs that let people create Flash slideshows, Flash newstickers, Flash menus, Flash intros and banners and Flash photo animations.

Menno has also created templates for entire Flash websites, which people can buy and then just replace the text and pictures with their own. The program is called EasyTemplates, and there's a range of templates people can choose from, or people can just buy the entire collection called EasyTemplates Flash Website Kit.

Below are samples of Flash text/background animations made with Mix-FX and Anim-FX respectively. You can download the programs from the Mix-FX and Anim-FX websites for free to try it out. Anyone can do it, it's that easy! (Yes, I'm shamelessly plugging the tools 'cos Menno's my hubby, but I do think they're cool!)