UWSAG talks to Frank Valzano
of FreeWorldGroup Website

Owner: FreeWorldGroup rated 3.0+ with UWSAG
Winner: UWSAG Top Ten! for May, 2003

1. What got you started in website design?
   
   "I have always been very interested in new technologies, so when the WWW was just starting to develop in the early to mid 1990’s I thought it would be interesting to develop my own site. Back in those days, we didn’t have very good html editors, so it was necessary to create the site entirely by writing the actual code. Needless to say, you could only create very crude looking sites that way. I started to get a little more serious about website design in 1996 when I started my PhD in Environmental Science. I created a comprehensive site for my department at the Australian National University."
   
   
2. What do you hope to accomplish with your website?
   
   "I want my current website to act as a magnet, attracting people from all around the world. By developing the entertainment and free aspects of my site I will hopefully achieve this."
   
   
3. What advice would you give new webmasters?
   
   "Take it one step at a time. You won’t get the most professional looking site first time round. Don’t try to make your site too complicated to begin and definitely don’t fill it with java or other scripts which generally do not add to the value of a site. Try to be creative within your capabilities and knowledge and develop your site from there."
   
   
4. What was the biggest problem you faced with your website?
   
   "The biggest problem I’ve faced with my most recent web site (FreeWorldGroup) was the level of complexity associated with the scripts I am using. On previous web sites I’ve used third-party sites to handle my email forms, forum, polls etc. But for the current site I’ve decided to use my own cgi scripts to manage most aspects of the site. It definitely makes for a more professional looking site (no irritating third-party advertising), but it is significantly more complicated doing things this way."
   
   
5. If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently?
   
   "I’d do things in the same way. Each step I have taken (good or bad) has contributed to my knowledge base and is therefore directly influencing the direction I am heading in at the moment. Given my other commitments, I think I’ve made pretty good progress with my web design skills over the years. However, I may one day do a course to find out how to do any number of things I still have no idea about."
   
   
6. What plans do you have for the future?
   
   "I’ll keep on going with my current site for a while longer. It is getting very large with over 500 individual html pages. So as a hobby site, it takes a lot of looking after. I will probably limit the amount of information I add to the site in future and only replace existing content with new content in order to keep it manageable and up-to-date. I want my site to make it into the top 100,000 most visited sites on the web. This is quite a challenge, but I think I’m heading in the right direction now with over 13,000 visitors per month"
   
   
7. What else do you like to do?
   
   "Well that’s a difficult question. I enjoy many things including reading, gardening, going to the movies, going out for drives, eating out at restaurants, going to cafes and dare I say, watching TV. Unfortunately, between my internet development hobby and work (I’m a research scientist) I don’t have a great deal of time for my other interests."