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Interview - with "The Newslady" Petra Struck

A number of AMIGA friends should already know her page, and if not - it's definitely worth a visit. Concentrated recent news, all about AMIGA, and committed work - what more could one wish?

http://www.amiga-news.de

To have a look at the successful homepage from the "backstage" perspective, I asked the web-mistress Petra Struck for an interview.

RN = Robert Niessner / AmigaScene
PS = Petra Struck / www.amiga-news.de

RN: Could just introduce yourself briefly?

PS: Well, let's start with the fact that I'm 42 years old, married, and have an 8-year-old daughter. I haven't been working full-time since Ivana's birth, so I've had plenty of time for my hobby AMIGA. My friend Meike is here right now, so I asked her to describe me briefly. Here we go:

"One can definitely rely on the fact that she means what she says and says what she thinks. That can be a pain in the butt, but it's a good starting point for work. Most of the time we have great fun with each other and we do a lot of nonsense together, but Petra is also someone who not only listens to other people's problems but also helps and gives good advice. To cut it short, her striking characteristics are honesty and cheerfulness - she's the perfect "best friend". You can really get along well with her - as long as you don't try to call her before 10AM."

RN: Yes, I had a similar impression when I first visited your homepage: one can see at a first glance that someone has put a lot of love and care into it. If there was a prize for the homepage with the friendliest text, you would most certainly get it! How long did it take you to make your HP what it is now? Will there be any improvements? You've already made a start with the Logo-Competition.

PS: The very first - really horrific - homepage I let loose on humanity in 1996 IIRC. It was a single huge exercise in self-glorification and the "intellectual value" was equal to zero. Since then, the page has been constantly changing, developing and improving. This will also be the case in future. There is no final, ultimate look and no unchanging content. The page will always be under construction. I have plenty of ideas, but there just isn't enough time to put them all into practice. For instance, I really should go over the hardware questionnaire and make it run with an internal CGI-script. Perhaps there is someone "out there" who knows a bit about CGI and AMIGA-hardware and who would like to help me? I would also like to make some changes in the Hotlist. I don't want to say too much about the really new ideas, so they don't get "stolen". :-)

RN: How did you get to AMIGA and for how long have you been using the system?

PS: Since I've never been content with the role of a "typical housewife", I decided to get a PC. Then I saw the AMIGA 500 on which a friend was playing an adventure game. I was fascinated by that at once and I decided to get an AMIGA. I think that was around 1992. The first few years I didn't even have a hard disk and the only thing I was using my AMIGA for were adventure games. Much later, I got interested in the operating system. Then, I just had to buy an A1200 and a modem.

RN: What does your system look like now? Are you planning to get an AmigaNG in the near future?

PS: My system is quite simple to describe: A4000T in a RBM-tower, Zorro III board with CyberSCSI onboard, Cyberstorm MKII from Phase5 with a 68060-50 MHz CPU, Picasso IV, 2 + 64MB RAM, modem DataBox Speed Dragon, an HP Deskjet 510 printer and a 17'' monitor.

And I'll be the first one to get an AmigaNG. :-)

RN: Your newspage is of unique quality within the German-speaking (Amiga-)area. How much time do you spend on average per day in front of the computer and in the WWW?

PS: That depends on my mood. It can be anything from two hours a day to six or eight hours a day. I work mostly at night when my family is sleeping. :-) My husband Gert makes this possible since he supports me by doing all the morning routine with my daughter.

RN: You seem to really fond of family life. Without that support you probably couldn't continue your time-consuming work on the homepage, could you?

PS: No, I certainly couldn't do that without my husband. And the best thing about our relationship is that we accept each other's hobbies and support each other in that area.

RN: Have you ever thought about quitting? I guess, if you weren't having fun with your page, you would have quit a long time ago.

PS: No, I've never really thought about quitting. But there are days when it just doesn't work as well as usual. I am a really cheerful person, but I can't be in a good mood all the time and then I get really annoyed, for instance by readers hyping about some small mistake, smartasses who think they can do everything better and then can't answer a concrete inquiry, webmasters who flood my mailbox with huge pics, people telling me to publish something "immediately and unedited", or people who think I have to write something about their homepage (usually the "my AMIGA, my hobby, my dog" - style) and are then pissed because I don't.

But that kind of day doesn't come up often and 95% of the time I really have fun working on the Amiga News. Also, I really enjoy the positive feedback.

RN: What do you actually do the rest of the time - when you're not working on the News?

PS: Oh, I do a lot, especially with my family and my friends. My daughter also has a bunch of loud friends. There is not that much work around the house, but I read a lot, sit in cafes and make fun of people. ;-) From time to time I help out in a boutique. It all small every-day stuff. Incidentally, I'm also the web-mistress of the Amiga-Club, but to be fair I have to say that I get a lot of help there.

RN: Wow! Hearing this makes one think that you a have a 48-hour-day. :-)

PS: Oh, no, not at all! It's just a matter of organisation and of course also of attitude. Also, I don't need more than seven hours of sleep which leaves me another seventeen hours per day to do things. And you can do a lot in seventeen hours! :-)

RN: You have, mostly through your newspage, a good overview of the situation on the Amiga market. What do you think about the general attitude in the community at the moment?

PS: I see completely different moods and attitudes every day: from "completely utterly crazy with joy" to "weeping and grieving". My personal attitude is optimistic. The impression I got at the meeting in Frankfurt was the Jim Collas is someone who can really move things and who will keep his word.

However, like many other users, I keep pondering some events, and sometimes there is a certain feeling of frustration. It's high time something happened - otherwise even more Amiga users will change to other systems.

RN: I can only agree with you. I think that all of us - the whole Amiga community - are anxious to see what happens. This is probably the very last chance for Amiga.

Something else: For some time now there've been advertising banners on you page. What are the reasons for this and what consequences does it have for you and the web-page?

PS: I think the reason is quite clear - the immense costs of being online all the time. I do get a lot of news by e-mail, but I have to verify the URLs given and I still have to "hunt" the major part of the news myself which takes a lot of time online.

RN: I heard (from you of course :-) ) that a lot of people have been hyping about the banners recently. Would you like to make a statement on that topic here?

PS: I just couldn't take an average phone-bill of 700DM on the long run. It's simply too much for a hobby. The homepage is very successful and therefore interesting for advertising purposes. Why shouldn't I use that in order to get at least part of the money back in? I don't see a conflict, even though some people have been talking about "commercialising". People who don't like the banners can go "news-hunting" on their own if they wish. ;-)

RN: Would you like to say anything special to our readers at the end?

PS: Yes: Enjoy life, let the sunshine in, enjoy the summer, read a good book, give your partner a nice present and stay as you are! :-)

RN: Well then, I thank you for the interview! :-)

PS: Thanks for your interest. I had a lot of fun doing the interview.

Robert Niessner
Milena Popova