About Us, Me and WEBADO

Who Am I

For the longest time I didn't have an About Us or About Me section here. I suppose it's because most people who visit my site already are acquainted with me so this site is really more of a reference point, a depository of information so that I don't have to repeat myself and can just send a link to the proper page when necessary.

At one point however it dawned on me that I also have visitors who actually find the site from a search in Google or other search engines, and they don't know anything about me and what this site is about.

Add to it the confusion of sometimes talking about us and other times about me and who can blame the poor hapless visitor who's looking for hosting or for a spot of web design or just for some information on various issues which I also happen to discuss in some of my tutorials. By the way, the tutorial section is there more so that I can refer to it myself

So now for the explanation of Us vs Me vs WEBADO: well, mostly there's just Me (a.k.a. Christina Soochan), but occasionally I have some help (any one of a few very good and talented friends) so that makes it Us, which overall is WEBADO. See, very simple. We don't stand on ceremony around here.

The story of my beginnings in web design is (or will be) told more eloquently in my personal blog blog.webado.com and I don't want to to repeat myself or bore you with it.

The story of my beginnings in web hosting is maybe more mundane. At first I needed to consolidate the various web sites I had built and that I was running on behalf of their owners and which were mushrooming all over the place. So it was logical that I should start a proper web hosting venture. This has been quite an interesting undertaking and I don't even know when it turned from a hobby into an actual business. Must be when I took a year off work to explore the possibilities and I unveiled an amazing array of them.

So here I am offering to share my hosting and web design knowledge such as it is with anybody who wants to build a presence on the www. My caveat on my TOS page is that I reserve to right to screen the nature and content of the websites that I host (and obviously those that I build) in order to uphold a few basic principles that I adhere to. I won't go into the details here, but suffice to say that I favor artists, personal and non-profit organization sites, with content in good taste as judged by me.

As you can see my web hosting packages are really attractive and prices are really not high at all, and that's definitely not because I'm still in the early stages of my web venture. It's what I consider fair. On the other hand I don't have any particular fee schedule for web design. I can't say how much it may cost to build a site with 5 pages or 10 or 50. It really all depends on how complex those pages are and whether I have to develop the content in addition to the layout and graphics myself, plus any functionalities which may be needed.

A derivative of web design I have also tackled lately on a few occasions has been the rebuilding of sites. This can range from revising and repairing a site that suffers from technical problems yet preserving its original look and feel, to almost total remakes. It is my experience that many hobby webmasters, which I was myself until quite recently, succeed in building great looking sites which reflect perfectly their intentions, but which have a multitude of problems mostly due to using poorly constructed templates and WYSIWYG editors.

Finally this website also contains a collection of tutorials on various web design problems I have dealt with. For instance I have more than one tutorial dealing with embedding media in web pages, such as audio, video and flash. For each media type there is at least one tutorial explaining the method used, working examples and scripts that can be downloaded as well.

As I discover a new method, find a solution for something bugging me, I try to write a tutorial for it. It helps me progress and if it also helps others find a solution or an explanation for what they need, so much the better.

This in a nutshell is my story and my mission, my justification for having a presence on the web.

My Claim To Fame

I am a computer technology professional, with a Masters degree in Computer Science from Concordia University and a BSc in Mathematics from McGill University in Montreal.

Over the last 10 years or so, by virtue of being very active in the Google Webmaster Central forum where I have helped hundreds of webmasters solve sometimes very serious issues with their websites, I have become a Bionic Poster, a.k.a. Top Contributor. My participation in this Google forum has contributed greatly to my learning about the way search engines work and the many types of mistakes to avoid as a good responsible webmaster.

I firmly believe that one learns through helping and teaching others.

In 2011 and then again in 2013, 2014 and 2016 Google rewarded me and many other Top Contributors from all over the world who help daily in the various Google product forums, by inviting us to spend a few days in California and visit the Googleplex in Mountain View at the prestigious Top Contributor Summit. They were fabulously magical events and a great opportunity to sample a bit of the life and culture at Google, besides the thrill of meeting old and new friends from all over the world.