* Who is Aesir?

Aesir Computing, Inc. is a corporation registered (1990) in the state of Virginia. Our headquarters is located in Herndon, VA and is about 20 miles outside Washington, DC. Our contact information is online.

* I found you via a page called Connections - what is it?

Connections is our premier online publication featuring popular travel destinations in the South. Connections has proven to be extremely popular with our viewers and presently attracts over 15000 unique visitors each and every day with a monthly increase of 15% in viewership (figures are as of March, 1998).

* Do you only handle resort-related Web sites?

No. When we first entered into the Web site design market we did focus primarily on resort and property management companies. If we had diluted our focus then we certainly would not have learned many of the key factors involved in attracting online travelers to our clients sites. After 2 years of Web site design, implementation, and maintenance, we have come to understand much about the online viewer. With all of our "lessons learned", we feel comfortable to embark on new frontiers as well as enhance our current offerings. These include new product development to enhance web site development and maintenance, and new topic areas for successful web sites like golf courses and commerce-related sites (i.e. Nevada Bobs and Fun Time.)

* Then is Aesir an Internet Service Provider (ISP)?

Aesir is an Internet Presence Provider (IPP). We have a close alliance with a local ISP which frees us from the difficulties and issues of being an ISP. We feel that this arrangement works best for not only our company but also for our clients.

* Why aren't you located in a resort area? Wouldn't it be better to be located close to your clients?

Aesir existed as a company long before we endeavoured into the Web site development arena. We've always been located in the metro-D.C. area and have found this to be technologically advantageous. We have an alliance with a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) who is directly connected to the MAE-East NAP. This eliminates problems with any upstream internet service provider outages affecting our services. Many of the resort areas we deal with do not have near the capacity nor connectivity to the Internet which we enjoy in the metro-D.C. area. This is very important since a Web site is designed to be online and accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

And as important, we do embrace technology and utilize the many tools of communication (FAX, phone, email, overnight courier) to stay in very close contact with our clients.

* Do you only do Web site development?

No. The founders of Aesir are computer programmers with many years experience. We are always looking for ways to enhance our web sites and to implement our Web site designs quickly. From our desire to build a better Web site we have developed several Web Site development and maintenance products. Also, if you take a look at our "About Aesir" page, you'll see that we also do work for companies involving Internet security, firewalls, and other technologies. Why even the Web server we use at http://www.aesir.com/ is our own software product. Many times over the last several years, we have evaluated many of the popular Web servers on the market and found them deficient. Our custom Web server allows us to quickly prototype and implement our ideas.

Aesir is not wholly comprised of programmers. We also have onboard a professional sales staff and a marketing/advertising manager with many years experience in the traditional mediums. And after 2 years of Web site development and maintenance, we feel comfortable to say that our experience in advertising now extends into this new medium of the Internet/World Wide Web.

* How many people actually work on and create these Web sites?

We have 2 full-time employees who handle (and have handled) all of our Web site design, development, implementation, and maintenance. Over the last 2 years, we have developed a large number of software programs and scripts to assist in the building and maintenance of our client's Web sites. These tools allows us to generate and build web sites at a lower cost to you and ultilize temporary staff as the need arises without compromising quality.

* So many other IPPs don't manage their own hardware for Web services. Is Aesir similar to these other companies?

Aesir manages and maintains all of the hardware and software engaged in our client's Web site development, implementation, and maintenance. Our Web servers are physically located on separate networks in different offices (T1 and 100Mbs access) for redundancy. Our goal is to provide our clients with a complete solution so that they don't have to deal with the technical issues. Also, by handling our Web servers inhouse we are better able to upgrade and improve the service. As the Web technologies change, so can our services change.

* I would like a true virtual domain. Do you offer that?

Yes. We offer a "true" virtual domain such as http://www.yourcompany.com/ and can point it anywhere you want. This allows you the flexibility of hosting your pages with any other provider including Aesir but the ability to create dynamic pages for tracking purposes. In other words, without changing your current site, or add new pages, you could designate that you have the following pages in print advertising: http://www.yourcomopany.com/WP - (Washington Post) and http://www.yourcompany.com/WSJ - (Wall Street Journal) to track these traditional advertising listings more effectivly. Visitors would be sent directly to your real site and you would have this information on your monthly summary so that you could track how they found your site. This is currently priced at $400/year. See http://www.DesertClubs.com/ and http://www.aesir.com/DesertClubs/ as an example of this service.

Yes. We offer a virtual domain for email such as yourname@yourcompany.com You will have a list of as many names as you would like and a mapping file to forward email to these accounts. This allows your company to change ISP's as often as you wish without changing your real email address. The price for this service starts at $500/year. You are not allowed to perform mass mailings (SPAMs) with this account.

No. We are able to offer email reflector accounts and domains only. Current versions of popmail pass the email passwords in the clear and for this reason we recommend that you try to find a popmail service provider as close to your physical location as possible to reduce sniffing attacks and possibly having your email stolen. We will offer this in the future when the passwords become encrypted and can offer an encrypted tunnel to companies who can utilize this technique to receive their email.

Yes and No. If the page you want us to link to contains public content and is not an advertisment for any company, we would be glad to add links from our pages where appropriate to your page. We may require a reciprocal link in some cases if you have a similar target audience as ours.

On the other hand, if you are selling something, we would require a $125/year fee and will locate the link where appropriate for your business. This may be more than one location depending on how applicable it is to our site. We do not require you to offer us a reciprocal link from your web page.