Ella Morton, like her heroine, X-File sleuth Dana Scully, is a feisty redhead with a very large brain (well, we can't actually prove it's large, but we know it holds alot).
A nethead since the late 90s, the delightful Ella fused a background in the arts and some curious dabblage in electronics retail, with a natural talent for writing and an unnatural yen for things technologic -- and hardwired them into a successful gig as Features Editor at CNET Australia.
She's amassed a legion of fans with her smart, sassy commentary on things tech, prompting us to chase her around the Interwebs for a Pin-Up session.
GI: Favourite toy as a child? EM: I really dug board games. Candy Land in particular. And Trouble! With the pop-o-matic bubble dice. Life was simpler back then.
GI: What are your earliest memories of technology and the Internet? EM: I recall playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? on my dad's Apple IIc computer in my formative years. That game is responsible for all my geographical knowledge or lack thereof.
As for the 'net, I first got online in 1997 and immediately set about discussing The X-Files on various mailing lists. I also taught myself bodgy copy-and-paste HTML and made a few websites on Geocities featuring such obnoxious late-90s hallmarks as the fluoro scrolling marquee.
GI: What do you do when you first sit in front of your computer? EM: Load up Firefox, where my homepage is NetVibes. All my RSS feeds and widgets are grouped into tabs by theme. Quite sad, really.
GI: What are you most addicted to in life right now? EM: The Internet and sugar-free V.
GI: Who are your heroes, in tech and otherwise? EM: Anyone who is witty, has a story to tell, and can make their own fun. I like people who dig life so much that there is a hole in the ground beside them. You know, from all the digging.
GI: If you weren't working in technology you'd be...? EM: Locked in some remote garret practising dramatic monologues in front of the mirror and wailing about how none of the street-dwelling philistines understand My Art. Either that or flogging jeans at Sportsgirl.
GI: Favourite meme (past or present)? EM: I'm thinking LOLcats. If you don't keel over laughing at Monorail Cat then you pretty much have no soul.
GI: Your favourite web haunts, podcasts, tv shows, music? EM: At the moment I'm loving Etsy.com, as well as NetVibes, galadarling.com, Lifehacker and -- cliche alert -- Facebook.
TV-wise, I love The Office (both UK and US versions), The X-Files (yay for sassy redheads) and Scrubs.
The most-played tracks on my iPod lately are by Tom McRae (fabulously angsty UK singer-songwriter), The Beatles and Amy Winehouse.
GI: Your favourite pick me up (bevvy, media snack, sounds, person/s)? EM: A hard-earned thirst needs a big cold champagne. Best enjoyed with my CNET.com.au crew -- they really are the greatest work-and-playmates a girl could have.
GI: Greatest invention in history? Worst? EM: I'd nominate the Internet for both. Never has so much information been so readily available, and yet the data overload can be really overwhelming and mindset-altering.
I know I blame the 'net for my cerebral Alt-Tab-itis and inability to concentrate for more than five minutes. Since the emergence of RSS, I have also developed an insatiable need to know everything as soon as it happens.
Maybe that's just me though. The Web and I have a complex relationship.
GI: Complete this sentence: Curiosity... ? EM: ...can get you into trouble. But usually the fun kind of trouble.
GI: Who's the sexiest person in tech? And why? EM: Steve Jobs. It's the turtleneck. Oh, and the fact that he makes the sexiest products in the world.
GI: Do you think men and women experience technology differently? EM: I wrote an article about this a few years ago, and I still don't have a definitive answer. Women are supposed to be more socially-oriented. Apparently we use focus on using tech as a medium for social interaction, rather than getting caught up with the specs of gadgets like men supposedly do.
While I think it would be foolish to ignore the inherent differences between males and females, vendors can be a little condescending when they release their "lady" products. I'm not really into the fuschia-hued phones or Swarovski-encrusted USB keys.
GI: You've worked alot in the arts as well as technology, and it's not uncommon to find connections between these two worlds (programmers turned musos, etc). What do you think fuses these two sectors, if anything. Shared brain space? The force? EM: I was having this very discussion recently with my fellow arts-and-tech friend, Craig Simms. He expressed it so eloquently that I will repeat his words here, for I cannot better them:
"It's a balancing act. Tech is more logical -- it behaves within rules and helps us to achieve amazing things. We're thinkers, problem solvers; yet we're also dreamers, and there's a side this technological world can't fulfil. This feeds the hunger for something creative -- writing, painting, singing, dancing, theatrics, wonderful illogical emotional abstracts. Things that don't obey rules.
"Occasionally by pure virtue of being familiar with technology, we employ it to assist us in these wildly creative outbursts -- and that's where the fusion happens.
We are people who appreciate both the sane and insane, who fully embrace both aspects of our humanity."
GI: What gets you hot under the collar? EM: A razor-sharp wit, an expansive vocabulary and a penchant for badinage. If you have all that AND a Vespa, I just might die.
GI: Big brains are better because...? EM: The mind is an erogenous zone.
GI: Your totem gadget? EM: I'm going to go for my MacBook Pro. I use it to write, watch DVDs, play around with pics and audio, listen to music...basically everything.
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GI Rising Star: Tom Wood
GI Rising Stars: Gabriel Ortiz and Paul Starr