About
Surprise, surprise. I'm also a computer geek. By profession I'm a computer consultant. Specializing in PC technical support. Windows 95/98/2000, Dells, networking, MS Office 97 & 2000, etc. After hours, I do Aikido. Now I go to three classes a week. And help teach the childrens class Saturday mornings.
And, of course, I'm the webmaster of AikidoSI.com. I setup the website. I registered our domain name. I designed, coded, and wrote most of content on the site. Plus, taking most of the pictures and movie clips of us in action.
The goal of the website isn't to bring in a boat load of new students into the school. We don't have the mat space to bring in more than five or six new students. But to get the word out about our school. Because it's a pain to have to spend more than three minutes explaining Aikido (It's not karate. Not that I've got anything against karate.) to non-martial artists. Or explain who and where Aikido of SI is.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy our website. Please, let me know what you like and dislike. Webmaster@AikidoSI.com
Doing research on how to make AikdioSI.com the coolest
Aikido website in the world.
Look! Two PCs at the same time. BTW, my digital camera
blackouts the laptop screen.
The Hardware
I have a homebrewed monster mini-tower PC. Recently, upgraded to an Athlon 700MHz CPU. Here's the gory details:
Motherboard: Microstar International K7 Pro, Model #: MS-6195
CPU: AMD Athlon 700MHz
RAM: Generic MIT (Made In Taiwan) 128MB PC100 DIMM
Video: Matrox Millenium G200 AGP w/ 8MB
Monitor: Cybervision C70 17" CRT
Hard Disk Drive: IBM Deskstar 372050 20.5GB 7200RPM UltraDMA/66
CD-Burner: Plextor PleXwriter 8/4/32A EIDE CD-RW
Modem: Diamond SupraMax 56i Voice PCI
Removable Storage: Internal Iomega 100MB Zip Drive EIDE
Digital Camera: Sony Mavica MVC-FD81
She's called the Maria-K7X1.
After my sister Mary Hwang.
The Software
I use mostly free or reasonably priced software. I don't
use Photoshop, Dreamweaver, or FrontPage 2000. I may be a
computer geek. But I prefer simplicity over fancy bells
and whistles. Bruce Lee always taught his students to
simplify. Simplicity. Less is more. More is less.
Here's the gory details:
Operating System: Windows 98 Second Edition
Web Browser: Internet Explorer 5.0
Webpage Editor: FrontPage Express 2.0.2
General Graphics Suite: Print Shop 10
Web Graphics Suite: Ulead WebRazor Pro 1.0a
The Internet Services
Website Host: The website is hosted by my ISP, AT&T Worldnet. They provide a maximum of sixty
megabytes with web-based webpage creation and maintenance
tools. You can with relative ease put a bulletin board,
chat room, calender, and photo album. And more junk on
your website. For the same unlimited monthly fee of other
ISPs. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me.
Domain Name Registration/Domain Name Forwarding: I
registered AikidoSI.com with namesecure.com. They also provide domain name forwarding
for AikidoSI.com. Because without their domain name
forwarding service. Web surfers would have to type in the
long and unrememberable http:\\home.att.net\~hyun.hwang\.
Because AT&T Worldnet isn't a real web hosting service.
A real one would cost at least $300 per year. And that
doesn't include the cost of your ISP account which you
need anyway.
Instead, with namesecure.com, I pay just $25 per year (plus a
one-time $25 setup fee). (Do the math. $300 per year to
rent a web server versus $25 per year for domain name
forwarding.) So, when a web surfer types in "AikidoSI.com."
Namesecure.com translates (or forwards) the web browser
to http://home.att.net/~hyun.hwang/index.htm. But in your address bar www.aikidosi.com or aikidosi.com sticks in there. To you it
looks like any other website which usually has one or
more web servers dedicated to that one website. E.g.,
Amazon.com or Yahoo.com.
Also, e-mail forwarding (to one "real" e-mail
address) is included. So, I can have users send e-mail to
webmaster@aikidosi.com & sensei@aikidosi.com or whatever@aikidosi.com. And that e-mail will get
forwarded to my e-mail box on AT&T Worldnet's e-mail
system. I look no different than the big boys. At a tiny
fraction of what it costs them to do the same thing.
Of course, I don't get to use any of the cool bells and
whistles a real (read expensive) web hosting service
offers. E.g., streaming video and audio, 100MBs or more
of web space, and superscience database support. It's not
perfect but it's good enough for the money I'm willing to
spend.
Just about to throw "Little Joe."
I don't know who I'm throwing.
Applying shiho-nage on Pat.
Threw Pat with shiho-nage.
[120KB MPEG movie clip] Applying tsuki kokkyu-nage on "Little Joe."
[120KB MPEG movie clip] Tsuki shiho-nage on Pat.
A webmaster is the poor fool whose job it is to oversee one or many websites. He or she is an HTML coder, webpage designer, researcher, programmer, editor, writer, marketer, etc. Whatever it takes to build the ultimate website. The first step in his or her plan to rule the world. (I'm not kidding.)
What I do as the Webmaster of AikidoSI.com isn't necessarily exactly what other webmasters, big and small, do. But in general terms all webmasters do more or less the same tasks. So, I'll try to describe what I did and do as a webmaster. (Hopefully without boring you to death.)
Step 1: What is my website's purpose (or goal)?
Step 2: With the time and money I have, what kind of website can I create?
Step 3: How am I going to create, buy, or steal the content for my website?
Step 4: How am I going to update/maintain my website?
Step 5: What is my marketing plan?
Before any webpages for AikidoSI.com were coded, I visited other Aikido websites. I noted what I liked and didn't. I tried to determine what would make our website better (or at least different) from the rest of the unwashed masses of Aikido websites already published on the web.
Eventually, I came up with a general mission (or goal) to create a website with a ton of action-packed pictures and movie clips of our instructor and students. As opposed to the text-heavy and multimedia-light Aikido websites already out in cyberspace.
Which is not to say I wasn't planning on having little or not text on my website. Of course, I planned on when I had the time (which turned out to be this week) either writing my own stuff or editing other people's submissions. I just didn't want to start off with a ton of text and little or no pictures and movie clips.
A few of our sub-goals were as follows:
A. Sell Aikido books and videos as an affiliate member of Amazon.com and herbals as an affiliate member of MotherNature.com
B. Sell Aikido supplies. Uniforms, gi separates, and wooden practice weapons.
C. Easily communicate relocation or location info without losing present and future students.
And otherwise we wanted our website to help recruit new
students. And reinforce and complement all the hard work
and talent of our existing membership. A website were
kohei (new student) and sempai (senior student) and their
friends and family can take pride in their art and school.
With the time and money I have, what type of website can I build?
I looked at the pennies stashed at my bank and the after hours and weekend free time I could schedule. And came up with a relatively small budget of time and money. So, cheaper, faster, and good enough became my corporate mission statement.
Essentially, no hot rod web server, no $500-a-pop web packages, and no psychedelic web graphics. Instead, whatever web space AT&T Worldnet had available. Free or reasonably priced web software. And whatever crappy web graphics I could steal or scribble. In other words, minimalistic, simple, cheap.
However, from the comments about the site from the instructor, students, and others. I think, in my humble opinion, the site looks pretty good. The site makes our Aikido school look credible and professional.
This is the really tough question most wannabe webmasters really haven't done a good job of answering. Before they created their really crappy sites.
Why is anyone going to surf to your crappy website? What do you have to offer? What's unique about your site?
Don't expect anyone to visit your website. Because you want to become rich, famous, and take over the world. No one cares what you want. They only care what they want (or need).
OK. Enough sermonizing.
For my website. The content, of course, came from the school. The instructor and students performing Aikido.
With my fabulously easy (read expensive) to operate Sony Mavica MVC-FD81. (It does most of the work.) I took high-quality JPEG pictures and MPEG movie clips. (Up to 60 seconds of movie action.) With help from the instructor and students I had a ton of content. Knife and gun disarming techniques. Aikidoists throwing and being thrown. Kids from the childrens class. Aikido weapons practice. Etc.
And everytime we take more pics and clips, the school is coming up with newer and better content.
Until computers can think for themselves and take out the trash. It'll be the webmaster's job (and a real job it is) to update and maintain the website.
I have to take the pictures and movie clips. Rename them. Upload them to my AT&T Worldnet's web servers (a computer that serves webpages). And make sure that each pic and clip loads and plays off of the Web. Not just from inside my computer. And delete any old pics and clips (of students I don't like. Just kidding.)
It's a very boring. Tedious job. But if I don't do it. The website will just turn into another crappy website. That no one wants to visit because it's got the same old rubbish it had the last time they visited.
In other words, if you're not going to regularly work on the website. Don't bother starting it in the first place.
OK. Now you're creating content and maintaining your world class website. Now you can look forward to more work. Get ready to sell, market, sell, market your website.
Have you figured out how you're going to get the word out about your fabulous website? Because if you think Yahoo! is going to automatically list your domain name on their homepage. Wake up! It ain't going to happen. Yahoo! won't even look at your #@$%^& website without you greasing them with $200. Even then they don't guarantee a listing anywhere in their database.
If you're a small-time operation, you'd better have a plan on getting the word out in your small pond.
You can do radio ads, giveaways, contests, flyers, billboards, etc. Anyway for you to push your domain name.
For AikidoSI.com, I got school tees (with our phone number and domain name) made for all our members. And friends and family. Now we're planning a three-month radio promo on WSIA 88.9 FM (our local College of SI radio station) with a contest and a boombox prize for each month.
It's not a $1,000,000 national ad campaign. But, I think, it's better than sitting around waiting for everyone to finally realize what a great website AikidoSI.com is.
AMD Processors -- Intel sucks, AMD rocks.
AT&T Worldnet
CyberMax PCs -- Great boxes, third-rate monitors.
For Dummies Books, audiobooks, CDs, and more.
Multiwave Direct -- I've actually bought stuff from them.
Namesecure.com -- My secret weapon.
Network Solutions -- "The Dot Com People"
Ulead Web Utilities -- I used their WebRazor Pro 1.0a package.
USAF (United States Aikido Federation)
Webmonkey -- Free web tutorials on HTML, e-commerce, and more.
Creating Web Pages for Dummies Quick Reference
by Doug Lowe
Making Money in Cyberspace
by Paul and Sarah Edwards and Linda Rohrbough
Striking It Rich.com
by Jaclyn Easton @ StrikingItRich.com
How to Get Clients
by Jeff Slutsky
Internet Basics
by The Standard Deviants
Learning HTML
by The Standard Deviants
Send comments to webmaster@aikidosi.com
Last revised: 5/20/2001