The information superhighway

Once in a while, I post ridiculous things I wrote during the pre-World-of-Stuff days. Sometimes I've found them written on posters or in notebooks, but quite often, they're sitting right here on my computer. My "documents" folder has tons of old things, some of which I don't even remember writing.

In the year 2000 (as opposed to, you know, the color 2000 or something), my school, St. Elizabeth's, still didn't have a web site. This document, dated March 7, 2000, provides a solution that was apparently dreamed up by me.

Why
Saint Elizabeth
Needs a
Web Site.
|-------------------------//-------------------------|
An Essay by Jordon Kalilich, Fifth Grade.

I am tired of other private schools being on the Internet when we are just here, moping around. Highlands Christian and Pine Crest are leaving us in the e-dust. There are several items to consider before making a Web site for a school, and I will dicuss some of them below:

I. Convenience
A Web site is very convenient, especially for a school. Instead of having to phone the school and pay for the costs, one could log on to the Internet and find information there. Aside from saving money, it's quick and memorizing long phone numbers is not needed.

II. Cost
Creating a Web site is usually free. There are Web sites that allow individuals and orginazations to create Web sites. One such service is at http://www.angelfire.com . To make a URL (Web site address) easier to remember, a domain name can be bought. Most domain services charge the first year free, the second year $70, and $35 each year thereafter. Of course, most schools wouldn't have a hard time getting that money. One of the most popular domain name services is at http://www.register.com .

III. Advertising, Etc.
One cannot just make a Web site and expect a thousand people to come. Web sites need to advertise to be visited. One such Web site, http://www.safe-audit.com , works with banner ads and advertising. Search engines are another key to popularity. Registering on search engines will help boost any Web site's visits, especially when you can register to 30 of them at one Web site. This can be done at http://www.addme.com .

IV. User-Friendliness
If one could name anything, it could be put on the Internet. Many things can be customized on a Web site. Using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), things that could be customized include, but not limited to: Font, text color, text size, background color, hyperlink colors, and things concerning images. A Web site with basic HTML tips is at http://www.htmlgoodies.com and http://www.htmlclinic.com .

That is why we need a Web site, how we can get one, and what we could do with it. Let this be brought to the attention of the principal, the staff, the student council, Ms. Ewing, and the entire student body. Thank you all and have a nice day.

I don't remember ever delivering that address (if that's what it was supposed to be). Eventually, the school did set up a web site. The URL was a third- or fourth-level domain name that was impossible to remember because it had nothing to do with the name of the school and, in fact, no apparent meaning at all. The site was also private; each family had to create an account and log in. It was not ideal.

And almost ten years after writing that, a lot has changed about the way people run personal web sites. We let Googlebot find our new web pages. CSS makes styling pages easier. theworldofstuff.com costs me $7.99 per year. And I hate advertising.

Nowadays, my old school has a new web site that uses a customized version of MediaWiki. And it's open to the public, so I can see which of my teachers are still there! It's kind of interesting to see how things have changed in the six years since I was a student there.

Thank you all and have a nice day.

The Katzenklavier is a theoretical musical instrument that's a sort of piano with cats inside. Instead of strings, each hammer strikes a cat with a different tone of voice. It sounds like something out of a cartoon, but it was described in the 18th or 19th century by some guy who thought it would be a great way to cure people of ADD. You can't make this stuff up! I wonder if anyone's ever built one.

From mental_floss: 10 Secret Menu Items from restaurant chains around the US.