About Keiko Schneider's Bookmarks

What is Keiko Schneider's Bookmarks?

This site is designed for students and teachers of Japanese language, but is covered more to geared toward to those who have similar interest. It is a collection of links. Not much my originality.

The most of the site is written in English (sorry for speakers of other languages. But I still receive a lot of visitors from non-English speaking countries.) and some links are in Japanese.

What is in where?

What's new? lists only new sites that were added to the latest edition.
Japanese language learning tools on Web is where you go if you are interested in Japanese language
For teachers of Japanese is a new section for teachers of Japanese
Bookstores and publishers gives you links to specialized Japanese book info.
Japanese newspapers and media also covers Real Audio sites.
Japanese culture and info is most suitable for general public who are interested in Japan (culture) or wants to travel to Japan (info)
Japanese programs and organizations contains US universities with Japanese programs, summer schools, study abroad, exchange programs for professionals, etc.
Computing and Japanese has gone over the big clean-up. Studying Japanese with computer software, Japanese capable computer issues and so on.
Great links includes Japanese search engines and big sites just don't know where to put.
Un poco de español porque lo estudio.
Other organizations and programs Organizations and programs that might be of your interest (but not Japan specific)
The JET program and teaching English in Japan. Please look if you are interested in living in Japan by teaching English.
Looking for teaching job? If you are a teacher and looking for a job, please stop by.

History

This site started in June of 1996 when I was teaching Japanese at the University of New Mexico. I was chatting with one of my students (Jairo Rivas to be exact) during the summer semsester. He was taking a class like "Computer for Business Majors" and one of his project was to make a Web page. That made me think about making a Web page for links that are useful for my students rather than sending info via e-mail every time I find out something. (You know students delete e-mail and later come back and ask for it.)

Even the idea hit me, my solid Humanities background didn't provide me with actual skills. I was surfing the Web for only 3-4 months then and surfing with Netscape 1 (yes, one). However one day, when I was fumbling with the browser, suddenly my Bookmarks showed up as a Web page. So I grabbed the computer guy at the US-Japan Center (Jesse Casman to be exact) and asked him if I can publish a page like that. He said, "That's a good start." He told me to arrange my local Bookmarks in the order I want. And he said he would help me with that. This site was born. In fact, why this site is called "Keiko Schneider's Bookmarks" is exactly because of this routine. If you go to your bookmarks file and save it, it will give you a title like that.

With limited surfing experience, I noticed sometimes they have cute "new" shows up in some site next to links. I asked Jesse how I would do it. Here he didn't tell me anything about adding graphics, but told me how to change the color of font (to red) so that it stands out. There must have been an update in fall break and winter break that year. Back then, there weren't many listservs so mainly my students and I were the only ones using the site. However the site started to grow. Now I noticed that in some sites, when you click on a link, it will take you to a section of the page. I grabbed the new guy (Sarang Gupta to be exact) and asked how I do that.

That is how I learned html. By grabbing and bugging the IT guys. In summer of 1997, I took "Creating a Web page" class at the UNM Continuing Education. I must have done spring break, summer break, fall break updates that year. With help of newly made listservs, my site started to become popular. I think around this time I was surfing with to Netscape 2. (yes, TWO)

In 1998, when US-Japan Center got out of UNM system, by accident, my computer along with all my data was taken. I remember I took my Bookmarks file with tears to do update for New Year's edition. Spring break, probably summer break twice, fall break updates that year.

By then I was managing Japan America Society of New Mexico site and CASLS site among other smaller sites. I took more classes and received Internet and Web Design certificate from UNM Continuing Education. 1999 brought a big change in my life. UNM lost funding from US-Japan Center, but my husband and I didn't want to move. So I established Saboten Web Design. Then the site was relocated to current InterWaves server. 1999 had spring break, June, August and October updates. Now this site resides in my own domain. http://www.sabotenweb.com

About me and this site
My Bookmarks