Website

[Please visit our sponsor:]

[aikidoc]

Here is the website I'm working on. It's still in progress but getting closer.

http://members.cox.net/aikidoc1.

John Riggs

[ian]

Hi John,

I thought the web-site was great. Easy to navigate, informative and welcoming for beginners. Not sure about you but I'm loath to use my Dr. title outside of my profession (unless you are a Dr. in Aikido?) Much of the information is presented on the right hand side which required a little scrolling. If the site is kept at the present size I think it would be great (I think sometimes sites get too large and unweildy for newcomers to navigate).

Dr. Ian :)

[PeterR]

I also like the site.

As per the Dr. thing I too am a bit loath. In Quebec the college specifically asked that I mention the academic title but generally speaking what I do for a living has nothing to do with my play.

[Pretoriano]

Good work I liked the site, especially the area for student handouts, check out the tech matrix diagram and the six pillars of Aikido.

I liked the Chiropractic web site even more, professional look, elegant, easy to read.

Have you subscribed the site on different engines yet? or you plan to finish the site first?

Praetorian

[aikidoc]

I'm not sure what you mean by different engines? What are they?

I'll fix the title thing. Thanks for the comment.

The sites about as big as it is going to get (space limits anyway).

The logo on the front is my design. I have worked on it periodically over the years and am satisfied with it. May make a patch someday.

Thanks for the comments.

[Eric Garcia]

Hey Sensei,

I think what Anderson is refering to are search engines. Many people submit their personal websites to the popular searh engines so that they can start directing traffic when queries are made.

Many websites include META keywords so that search engines can easily locate sites. For example the HTML:

<meta name="keywords" content="aikido, riggs, midland, AAA">

By adding this source to your HTML any query made with those keywords would display your site. However, I do believe keywords are case sensitive so adding different forms of capitilazation of your keywords is a smart thing.

-Eric

[aikidoc]

Hi Eric:

I guess you must be back in school. You slipped out without us getting a chance to let you know how much we enjoyed having you train with us. Good luck in your schooling and hopefully you'll drop by and train with us again.

I'm not sure I understand all of what you said. I use the computer mainly for word processing.

[aikidoc]

Manuel:

The chiropractic site is actually a template. I just filled in the information. They do a professional appearing site though. The aikido site was my concept (I did not do the nitty gritty work though, paid a student to do that).

Thanks

[kironin]

Website, looking pretty good.

Small world too I noticed from your bio.

.

My first ever aikido seminar was with Shoji Masao Sensei. It was very inspirational.

rock on,

Craig

Houston, TX

[akiy]

Hi John,

My feedback would be that not everyone has Shockwave/Flash installed on their browsers. (I, for one, have a utility that turns it on and off; usually, I have it turned off...) It may be prudent to include the ability to navigate your site without the necessity of installing that plug-in. Just my thoughts.

I hope Barbara is doing well at your dojo.

-- Jun

[aikidoc]

Thanks. I'll see what I need to do to fix the shockwave.

Barb is actually doing fine. She is back training on a limited basis. She is still not allowed to do rolls or hard falls. She has been doing more training in Taekwando. It appears she came out of this very well. The second operation (more of a stint insertion) actually went quite well. Any neurological residuals seem to be subtle. The heat really bothers her though.

Thanks for your interest. Sorry I forgot to do an update on her.

[aikidoc]

Craig, when did you train with Shoji sensei? I see you are still with Ki Society. I trained with him when he was godan. I think he is now 7th. I enjoyed my time with him.

[Eric Garcia]

Im still here in Midland. I dont leave for school untill the 27th. I have been out of town the last 3 weeks so I havent been able to make any classes. I will be here tuesday so I hope to see everyone then.

[Pretoriano]

Thanks Garcia for to aclarate about subscribing web site for everyone to reach even from scrath search not only reference, that should increase traffic made from aikido general queries. Also for addressing about the Metatags (important) use it, there re not hard to insert.

Dr. Riggs, even more for your credit (the concept) I also liked the sounds, any extra graffics you could need just send PM. Form of pay: just some free classes whenever we meet.

At least you were one of the few people who commented about the graffics I made for Aikido.

Praetorian

Manuel Chiquito Anderson

[jducusin]

John,

Very nice site --- I really like the variety of instructional material you've uploaded for your students.

You may, however, wish to reconsider your current Flash entry page and navigational menu for the sake of accessibility and universal design. It would be wise to either add a link to (or even replace your current front page and menu with) an html link-based menu not only for those who do not have Macromedia Flash installed (as Jun mentioned), but for people with disabilities who may wish to find out more information on your dojo and may be unable to use a mouse to point and click to each section of your site. A couple of examples would be:

- someone with a mobility disorder which prevents them from having the dexterity to maneuver the mouse well

- someone with blindness or a visual impairment who would not be using a mouse, but whose text-to-speech screen reading software (and thus their entire Internet browsing experience) is solely controlled by keyboard commands

As things stand, unless someone is using a mouse, they cannot even get past the front page to access the information contained within the site; and even if by some chance they were able to get in, they would not be able to use the menu to access any of the internal pages.

For more information on Web Accessibility, and to learn about how to make webpages accessible, you can visit:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/

http://www.webaim.org/

http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp

Hope this is of some help --- best of luck!

Jamie

[kironin]

Craig, when did you train with Shoji sensei? I see you are still with Ki Society. I trained with him when he was godan. I think he is now 7th. I enjoyed my time with him.
It was in the early 90's.

I think he is semi-retired now from regular teaching. Though I did get to see him at a seminar last year in San Francisco.

best,

Craig