Yoakemae (also known as YM.net) has a pretty (dare I say?) colourful history – this page lists pretty much all you need to know about it.

the rose with any other name…

…would probably be a different species of flower altogether. Anywho, Yoakemae (pronounced “yo-ah-kay-mah-ae”) isn’t an English name; it’s Japanese. In fact, it should be written as “yoake mae” (not joined up!), as it means “before dawn” (“yoake” meaning “dawn” – figure the other one out. =P)

The name choice was influenced by a variety of factors, including (but not limited to) 1) my (somewhat) lifelong affinity with the Japanese language, 2) my interest in the anime Rurouni Kenshin (the 3rd ED theme is called “Heart Of Sword ~Yoake Mae~”), and 3) the fact that it just sounds…well, different (by that, I mean “pretty unpronouncable”-ish. xD)
Reason 3) sounds a tad ironic, I know, because teenage anime webdesigners in the days would translate a random word into Japanese – or look for a Japanese song title and mod it (if needed), and then, if it sounds nice-ish, register a domain name from there. I was the latter – hey, I never said that I was trying to be clever with names! Additionally, my brother had a very helpful hand with the picking, so this name is “partly him” too. (It was either this or “tralala.com/net/org”! xD)

Believe me, even though my obsession with Rurouni Kenshin (RK) has died down somewhat, YM.net will remain as a testimony to my childhood/teen years, so there’s no way I’ll tire of the name. Or explaining myself to others who go, “uh, what the deuce does that mean again?”

technicalities

YM.net has the “honor” of being known as a “gift domain” – y’know, the domains that teenage webdesigners like me get from their folks for some sort of special occasion (like their birthday – and I say “parents” because we usually don’t have credit cards or earning capabilities.) In my case, YM.net, along with its hosting, was an early Christmas gift in 2005 – for that, I have my Dad, better known as otousan/oyajii to thank a thousand times over.

The domain was first registered at Netrillium, then promptly moved over to Dynadot soon after for various reasons. As for its “residence” (better known to us geeks as hosting), I went with Surpass Hosting on their OC5 plan, (no longer available now) and haven’t budged at all sincethe day YM.net set up home there. Suffice to say, I’m really happy with both Dynadot and Surpass, and plan to be a loyal customer for years to come.

rental?

Since I’ve got a generous plan and (touch wood) don’t even use 10% of it, I’m more than happy to host some other webbies in need. If you reckon your site could do with a home here at YM.net, by all means, email me at ariane[at]surrealle.com OR carolxann[at]gmail.com with details/screencaps – and we’ll talk.

Specs and requirements are definitely negotiable depending on your site – feature-wise, I’ve got the works (FTP access, PHP, CGI, MySQL etc) available if you need it; although I expect you, the applicant, to be reasonable with your reqs. I’d like to think that you guys are mature enough, so that I don’t have to spell out every do and don’t from A-Z for you. However, if you’re unsure about what goes and what doesn’t, by all means, ASK.

days bygone

Be warned, it’s long!

YM.net is actually my third site, but it’s my very first domain – the successor to two of my older sites hosted by other domain owners. Its predecessor(s), however, wouldn’t have come about had it not been for my otousan/oyajii Dad, being dad, was (and still is) ever the supportive one; I had expressed interest in building “the next Google/Yahoo” sometime in late 2004 after my UPSR/PSLE papers in the 6th grade – I had plenty of time on my hands, after all. He then scouted for tutorials and guides to allow me to tinker with HTML and hexadecimal values. This, compounded with my then-obsession of the anime Rurouni Kenshin, had me on the computer for hours on end – both learning HTML and scouring for images.

After discovering the joys of premade layouts as well as why Notepad trumps MS Frontpage any day, I decided it was time to hop into cyberspace; thus creating my very first “allsorts” site – Flyaway Dreams. My then-hostess, Angelle, was more than happy to host me based on just a screenshot (I hadn’t experimented with free hosts due to my paranoia. 0_0) I was only a few months shy of 13 then (May 2005), and yes, tres noobish at that point. Heck, I was one of the few to “fall into the (unfortunate) realm of anime webdesign later on! FD didn’t even really have a purpose; I was only shoving random writings/blurb on it. FD did manage to score me my first few online accquaintances, however.

Realising that designing my own layouts + graphics would gain me better recognition, I turned to otousan (again!) to ask where I could find a graphics program. He didn’t let me down – he let me borrow his office’s copy of Adobe Photoshop CS (the latest edition in those days!), and I proceeded to scrounge for online tutorials and create my first few (dismal-esque) site layouts. Painful learning process, yes, but I slowly got better.

Later on in 2005, I opened my first (semi-dedicated) blog called “Outspoken” on Cathy’s imo-soulless.net (now defunct.) Original name, I know, but through Outspoken, I learnt a bit more about online politics and how to better express myself, and also made different friends online. Since I now had 2 sites to design web layouts for, I subsequently gained more Photoshop + HTML + PHP practice and improved (slowly but surely.) FD was expanding along with that, too; from just random “did you know?” fact pages and personal info, it soon contained little web graphics (avatars, sigs etc) plus a few premade layouts that I designed.

Both sites grew for less than a year until my dad decided to buy me a domain – I decided it was time to say goodbye to having two sites, and to move everything here; so I combined FD and Outspoken and housed my writing + blog on YM.net. I was originally planning to keep the graphics on the domain, too; however, I discovered that it’s way easier to have a fully personal + blog site on one domain and to host graphics elsewhere. To top it off, I was building up a portofolio of my own from my involvement with my school’s editorial board graphics team, so I decided to house the graphics on another site. But that’s another story.

YM.net has been through quite a few bumps, namely due to my not-so-smooth-sailing involvement with certain characters in the webdesign circle, and the fact that I logged those moments down. In December 2007, however, I decided it was time for me to wipe the slate somewhat, privately archiving the blog posts I made before Dec 2007 onwards. And there you have it; a run-of-the-mill history on just another domain. =)