🠈 Salt Lake 2003 Highlights 🠊
A Tour of Salt Lake Sites
Salt Lake Sites is a directory of web sites in, or related to, the Salt LakeValley. The main goal of this site is to promote independent local web development. The site has 2500+ links in over 160 categories. The site is still growing ata rapid clip. I've organized the directory in a hierarchy. You need to do alittle bit of clicking to see all of the sites.
For the most part, I have found the listed sites by following links fromother local web pages. If you have a local site that I missed. Surf to the directorythat fits your site, and add your link. The goal is to list every site in Salt Lake short ofporn sites, warez or otherwise illegal sites. BTW, I don't necessarily agreewith the content of the listed sites.
Realizing that your time is precious, I made a page that highlights some ofthe interesting areas of web development in Salt Lake City. Of course, you aremore than welcome to browse through the 137 categories on your own and find yourown favorite spots.
Homepages
Before the internet bubble, before the dot com burst, before there was onlineshopping and before mailboxes were full of spam, there was the humble personal homepage. Whenthe Internet was first opened to the public at large, people by the millionsflocked to bookstores for HTML tutorials. One by one, people designed anduploaded their personal homepage. The homepage phenomena was one of the largestacts of collective creativity ever witnessed on this planet.
The internet was incubated in the system of higher education. As a result,homepages were often geared toward intellectual or other creative interests. Thewriters of homepages didn't have visions of grandeur, it was simply a largenumber of people communicating things they found of interest in life. Agood home page would tell you about the books someone read, or have a reportthey wrote in College. Homepages provide information on human interest.
I still see the personal homepage as most creative act on the net.Unfortunately, it is harder and harder to find personal home pages. As I come across home pages fromSalt Lakers, I add a link to the page in the homepagesubdirectory. If you are in the Salt Lake Valley, and have a personal homepage, I would be honored if you added a link to your site.
Today's fad is to create a thing called a blog. A blog is an online journal. Many blogs are extremely informative. Many of the blogs are about research on the net and get quite detailed. Please add your blogs or online journal to the Salt Lake Blog Directory.
Jobs
The busiest page on this site is the jobs page. I actually started Salt Lake Sites as an effort to scope out the job scene inSalt Lake City. This is a sample project that I show employers in interviews. (Do you know anyone who needs a dried up programmer? Didn'tthink so.) The main jobs directory lists local employmentresources and job agencies. I've also been adding links to sites with jobpages. Not all employers have job pages, but it is a start. Although thereare few programming jobs in the valley, you will notice a large number of jobpages for computer firms. Well, they are the pages I was looking at. If you aredeciding between a career lumping trucks or Java programming...you will find more jobs in the truck loading and unloading biz. The health care industry is the best bet in this state at this date and time.
The best way to find a job is through personal networking. The jobs pagedirectory is still a handy resource.
Dining
The second most popular directory on the site is the diningdirectory. I found this surprising. My goal in the dining directory was tolist web sites for local restaurants. The directory was not intended as a dining guide.Still, a large number of people come through the site each day looking forsomething to eat. Salt Lake restaurants should take note. If you build a website, diners will come. People are extremely interested in hearing what you haveto say about your food. Web surfers like to browse menus online in the neverending quest to find a new dining experience.?
Arts & Crafts
We all know about Utah's obsession with genealogy.Well, Salt Lakers have also taken to scrap booking with a vengeance. Scrapbooking combines crafts with family research. A scrap booker takes all thefamily photos and memorabilia, then creates a unique presentation for theinformation. These scrapbooks will become valued family heirlooms. You will find dozens of Salt Lake scrap booking web sites in the craftsdirectory. So far, I've only scraped the surface of this fascinatingsubculture, but it is a new phenomena in the valley worth noting.
Speaking of culture, Utah is an odd beast. Utah has one of the largest numberof artists per capita of any state, and one of the lowest number of art patrons.With a mix of alpine and desert terrain, Salt Lake is at the crossroads of theAmerican art experience. Salt Lake is just north of the Colorado Plateau, theart culture has influences from the Southwestern and Santa Fe styles of flamingly bright colors.The state also has been influenced by the cowboy art and grand landscape arttypifying the arts of Montana and the Rockies. The rift between church and statein the art community has also led to an interesting blend of religious, andmodern arts. The Utah art scene is a melting pot of ideas. For more informationon art, check out the Art Subdirectory.The web is great. It allows Salt Lake artists access to the national artcommunity.
Salt Lake is also international center for dance.From traditional ballet and folk dances to cutting edge interpretive dance, SaltLake has a developed a reputation for its dance productions. Of course, mostUtah dance troops have to go on road shows to find an audience. If I couldaccomplish one thing with this web site, it would be to send more people to thesefantastic local dance productions.
I am also surprised by the depth of the Salt Lake musiccommunity. Again, Utah has music crossing the gamut from the Utah Symphony to avibrant underground. Utahans listen to a gamut of styles that includes everythingfrom country to classical. Oddly enough, Salt Lake (home of the Utah Jazz) hadvery little in the way of Jazz music...that was until the birth of the new Jazzat the Sheraton series that is bringing many of the best Jazz artists throughSalt Lake.
Utah offers brilliant scenery conveniently located near Hollywood. Thousandsof films and westerns have taken advantage of the scenery as a backdrop to theirworks. The mostsignificant event Utah's film history occurred when Robert Redford chose ParkCity as the headquarters for the Sundance Film Festival. It is strange that, astate where few people watch independent films, has become the hub of theindependent film community.
The drop in production costs in the last few years has led to a suddenexplosion of independent LDS films. With odd titles like "The ReturnedMissionary," "God's Army" and "Brigham City," the LDS communityis popping out film titles in record numbers. Many films have accompanying websites. The underground community has also been adding a number of counterculture films to the Salt Lake film community. I will add links to film related web sites in the filmsubdirectory.
Gardening
2003 is shaping up as a drought year. It might be a good time to startrethinking the expansive green lawn, and start thinking about establishinggardens designed for Salt Lake's unique climate in the high desert plains. I hope tofind more links about local gardening and native plants and add them to the GardenSubdirectory.
News and Events
I put links to all the state papers in the newssection. The news section is the most informative section of the web. Theonline newspapers carry up to date goings on in the valley.
Shopping
The web is first and foremost a place to shop. Well, okay, I use it primarilyfor research, but you can shop online. Many sites use the web to unload theiroverstocked merchandise, and you can find some great bargains online.
Originally, I was restricting the directory to stores headquartered inthe Salt Lake Valley, but finally opened it to stores with a physical presencein the valley.
The really exciting thing about the net is that anyone can open an onlinestore. Many people in the valley are carving out a living by selling things on eBay, or through Amazonstores. It is also easy to set up your own online store. If you are in SaltLake, and have a store, feel free to add a link to your site. I am notattracting many shoppers yet, but as people realize that this is a greatresource, I hope to see more shoppers. Shoppers, please check out the shoppingdistrict. If you are selling stuff online, please add your free link.
I've been surprised by the number of local web sites offering homefurnishings and interior design. It makes sense. Home furnishing is a bigbusiness. These sites use their web sites to display their products and eventake orders. The Home Directory has several shops offering custom designed shutters as well as an interestingcollection of decorating ideas.
The stores marked sponsor pay commissions. I madeabout $60 off sponsors on Salt Lake Sites in January. I've noticed that peopleare less likely to click on a link when it is marked sponsor.
Conclusion
The goal of Salt Lake Sites is simply to find and list web sites created inor of interest to the Salt Lake Valley. Browsing through the different sites isa good way to learn about the different people in the valley. SaltLake has evolved from a reclusive outpost in the desert west to a majormetropolitan area with a diverse group of voices. The web provides convenientaccess to thesevoices. The goal of this directory is to provide open access to all of thediverse ideas (excluding illegal stuff and porn) bouncing around through thevalley.
I hope you find this to be an valuableresource.
Happy Surfing
The Management.
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