Behind The Screens

Here is a behind-the-scenes look at this web site, Art Of Middle Eastern Dance, for those who like to know such things! If you're the sort of person who likes to watch television documentaries that show how your favorite movie was made, then this is the page for you!

Last updated December 31, 2004 (just the survey results).

How To Link To This Site Survey Results Software Used To Build This Site	Most Popular Pages Awards Won By This Site Frequently Asked Questions About This Site
Important Notice!

Link To This Web Site!

Guide other people who like belly dancing here! No need to ask my permission first--just go ahead and link to http://www.shira.net. But if you tell me you've linked to me, I'll put a link to your site on my Links page! Here is sample html to make the link as plain text:

<P><A HREF="http://www.shira.net/">Art Of Middle Eastern Dance, By Shira.</A> A web site to educate, entertain, and inspire belly dancers!</P>

If you like, you may use this artwork shown to the left for your link. Here's how:

Right-click on it with your mouse button and save it to your own computer.
Put this html on your page:
<A HREF="http://www.shira.net/"><IMG SRC="sitebutton.gif" WIDTH="216" HEIGHT="125" ALIGN="BOTTOM" BORDER="0" ALT="Art Of Middle Eastern Dance, By Shira"></A>
Upload the graphic file to your computer at the same time you upload your modified web page. (Make sure the name of the file matches the name in quotes following "IMG SRC=".)

If you would like to use this image, but prefer a different color scheme to go with the design of your web site, I'll gladly make one for you in the colors of your choice. Just let me know what you'd like! And please note the copyright notice below in italics.

Here is an alternate graphic you may use for linking from your web site to mine, just in case you prefer a banner format. Right-click with your mouse button and save it to your computer, then upload to your own web site. Here's the html to go with it:

Click here for more than 15 other graphical buttons you may use. I'll leave it to you to figure out the html for linking to them, using the above examples. Once again, please note the copyright notice below in italics:

Please note: This artwork is copyrighted. It is intended solely for use in linking to my web site, Art Of Middle Eastern Dance. Please do not use these images for flyers, linking to other people's web sites, or decorating someone else's site when there's no attached link to mine. Please do not create your own animations of these graphics or other modifications -- as I said above, if you want to use one of them for a link to my site, but prefer a different choice of colors, I'll gladly make one special for you in the colors of your choice. This artwork is not freely available clip art for you to use as you please. If you like my artwork, please respect the wishes of the artist who created it!

Survey!

On February 23, 1998, I put a survey on this web site inviting visitors to help me prioritize ongoing development of this web site. Three months later, I had enough preliminary results to start using it as the basis for decisions, and I began prioritizing my plans for the site based on the feedback.

Special note to any statisticians who may be reading this: I've had enough statistics training to recognize the flaws in my survey design. But I consider the survey, flaws and all, to be adequate for accomplishing my aims.

Respond To The Survey Yourself

Complete the survey yourself to make your own voice heard regarding what you think the future of this site should be.

Survey Results As Of December 31, 2004

The survey results below reflect responses by 377 visitors to this web site between February 23, 1998 and December 31, 2004. On December 31, 2004, I removed the old survey with its detailed questions about what types of articles people liked, and replaced it with the more demographic-oriented survey that exists today.

Who Responded?

I asked survey respondents to identify their dance skill level. The outcome:

Non-Dancer: 48
Beginner: 213
Intermediate: 123
Advanced: 49
Teacher/Professional: 48

Awards!!!

These are arranged in chronological order of when they were received. I'd like to thank each and every award site featured below for granting me their awards. I know it takes a lot of hard work to sift through the massive number of sites on the web to find just the few that grab your attention, and I appreciate their taking the time to look at mine and offer me their award.

Why there aren't any more recent awards: the way most web site awards work is that the webmaster needs to apply for them. The webmaster completes a form on the award site, and the owners of that award visit the site to determine whether it is worthy. If they feel it does deserve their award, they will grant it. In 2000, I stopped applying for awards. I felt I had received enough to validate my vision for Shira.net!

Which Pages Get The Most Activity

There were 247 articles on The Art Of Middle Eastern Dance as of October 29, 1999. In August 1999, the top 10% (i.e., the 25 articles that were accessed the most) were:

Teacher & Performer Directory (5,563 accesses)
Links (4,973 accesses)
Shira's Classes (3,773 accesses)
How To Find A Local Class (3,668 accesses)
Symbols From The Middle East (2,478 accesses)
Clip Art By Meira (2,261 accesses)
Styles Of Belly Dance In The United States (2,151 accesses)
Student Costume (2,138 accesses)
Sword Tips & Tricks (1,968 accesses)
Belly Dance Costume Patterns (1,891 accesses)
How to Do Stomach Rolls (1,648 accesses)
What to Do if You Can't Find a Local Class (1,591 accesses)
Table of Contents for This Web Site (1,425 accesses)
Translation To Habibi Ya Nour El Ain (1,307 accesses)
Glossary Of Belly Dancing Terms (1,295 accesses)
About Shira (1,279 accesses)
Translation to Inte Omri (1,259 accesses)
Translation to Simarik (1,227 accesses)
The Goddesses Of Ancient Egypt (1,117 accesses)
Translation to Aba'ad (1,030 accesses)
How to Do A Backbend (1,009 accesses)
Costuming Ideas for Short-Haired Dancers (1,002 accesses)
How to Do a Forward-and-Back Shimmy (966 accesses)
Ancient Scenes (Papyrus) (953 accesses)
Arabian Faces (951 accesses)

Return To Table Of Contents

Software Tools

Are you thinking of building your own web site, and wondering what software I used to do mine? These are the products I used in building the graphics, audio clips, and html pages for this web site:

Adobe Pagemill. For html authoring and web page design. Comes with a "lite" version of Adobe Photoshop for editing graphics. Has been discontinued by Adobe.
Adobe Illustrator. For creating the separator bars and outline drawings (for example, the artwork appearing on this page). Also for editing clip art that I get in "vector graphics" format such as WMF, CGM, or EPS files.
Adobe Photoshop. For editing scanned photographs and clip art that I get in "bitmap graphics" format such as TIF, JPG, GIF, or BMP files.
GIF Animator. (By Ulead.) For adding the animation to the shimmying dancer and the two camels on the Fun & Frolic menu of this web site.
SmartSaver. (By Ulead.) For saving GIF and JPEG files in the very smallest file size I can manage, so that pages with graphics will load more quickly.
HP Deskscan. For scanning photographs.
CD Spin Doctor. (Comes with Adaptec Easy CD Creator Platinum.) For extracting audio clips from music CD's, records, and cassette tapes.
Screenblast Sound Forge. For editing audio clips, including music, finger cymbal examples, meowing cats, and voice.

Return To Table Of Contents

If You Like This Web Site, Please Read This!

Please show me courtesy and respect by cooperating with the following, and ask your friends to do the same:

Please do not send the articles, music files, and artwork on this web site to other people via e-mail. Instead, please give those people the address for this site, and encourage them to come visit for themselves.
Please do not post the articles or music files you find here on your own web site. Instead, please just link to the pages you like.
Please do not use artwork from this site to decorate your own web site, flyers, business cards, or other projects unless you found it on the Clip Art menu. If you do use artwork from the clip art menu, please cooperate with the conditions set by the clip art providers.

Please do not publish anything from this site in a newsletter unless you get my permission first. Yes, I will give permission if you're willing to meet my conditions. So far, everyone who has asked has found my conditions to be reasonable.
Please do not make copies of material from this site to distribute to other people unless you get my permission first. Yes, I will give permission if you're willing to meet my conditions. So far, everyone who has asked has found my conditions to be reasonable.

Of course, you may view or print pages from this site for your own personal use. And you're welcome to link to this site without asking me first.

If courtesy and respect for my generosity in sharing all of this are not enough to get you to honor my wishes, please also remember that the law is on my side. All articles and artwork appearing on this web site are protected by copyright law.

I truly regret the need to say all of this, but I've been driven to it by people who stole things from my site. If this theft continues, it could drive me to remove this site from the web. So please be an honorable member of the Internet community, and cooperate with my requests.