Using the services of James Cyberwallah Walker

On this page: what i can do | what i can't do | it's your website | how to repay me

What i can do

To do this i can:

• Be a teacher
  • Teach you the technical skills to build a website: From html, stylesheets, how to register a domain name, up to web programming and server administration.
  • Teach you how to build your website in ways that make it easier to manage, change, and grow.
  • Teach you how to install and use a content management system (CMS): My specialty is WordPress.
  • Show you how to install and use web programs such as contact form, membership form, photo gallery, forum, etc.
• Be a resource
  • Provide a website, CDs, and books with information and reference material to learn with.
  • Show you how to "get your website up": how to get your domain name registered, build a basic site that you can grow from, and get it hosted (online. live).
  • Be a "tech-speak" translator for you when commnunicating with others about the technical aspects of your web hosting, site development, etc.
  • Show you how to find other services you might want for your website (page translation, mail lists, forum, etc.)
  • Be an ongoing resource if you get stuck.

My goals:

• Support Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan cause, with such skills as i have.
  The only useful skills i have are in Web Technology! Therefore:
• Help people communicate with the world through this new and wonderful thing, the world wide web, by teaching how to make websites.
• Help people understand the principles of how it all works.
  If you understand the principles, then you have the power.
  • You can choose the right tools for whatever job you want to do.
  • You will also be able to learn those tools (programs etc.) faster and easier.
• In the end, make myself unneeded, because people here know all the things i know. (This is now happening — Yay!)

what i can't do

• Make your website for you. I won't do that.
  ("But ... but ..." you say, "We know you have built websites for Tibetans!" Well yes, this is true: I can only teach if i know how to do myself, and i can only learn the new technologies by doing them — so i have to make something. Here's how i choose
• Teach programs such as Dreamweaver, FrontPage, PhotoShop, Windows admin, etc. These are all very useful, but one person can't know everything!
  (I teach code, and the technology and principles behind those things, so that you can use them better.)
• Do anything on your website without your direction. I can advise based on my experience. But the final decision is yours.
• Keep track of your records: passwords, your web hosting information, etc. They are yours, even if i helped to set them up.
• Ecommerce or money-making: I can't help with sections of a website that are doing those things. Even if it is something like, say, selling newsletter subscriptions etc. to help support your organisation.
• Be an organisation member or staff, or be paid: I feel that i am most effective doing exactly what i am doing.

What i am not:

• I am not a web *designer* — i don't know how to design your page layout, colors, graphics etc. (but if you know what you want and have the graphics, i can show you how to turn it into a website.)
• I am not a classroom-style teacher. (I teach one-on-one, practical, learn by doing.)
• I am not a manager, not a project leader, not a decision-maker, not a businessman. (I am ... only a very small, very limited, teacher.)

There are plenty of people around who can do these things. It is possible that one of them, and not i, is the best person for you!

it's your website

• Your website: The website is *yours*, not mine. You know what you want to say on it, you know your audience, in a way that i never can.
• Show, not do: The more i *show you how*, rather than *do for you*, the more the website is yours and not mine. This is good!
• A website is never finished: A website is not like a book. It is more like a machine, like a car. It needs updates and repairs forever ... so there's no point to build it if you can't take care of it!

How to repay me

No my services are not free! True, i don't ask for money, but i do ask for something else even more expensive: Making and maintaining an effective website is hard work!

• Learn the things i have to teach you — by doing them.
• Eventually you, or someone else local, takes over all the jobs of the website yourselves.
• Pass this knowledge on to others.

why?