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A Little Often Goes a Long way With Search Engine Optimisation and this article gives you top tips on how to bring people to your website.

Simply adding news features about anything that�s happening in your business can help keep your site up to date and also keep your customers more informed. Whether that�s telling customers and suppliers about big orders you�ve won, any new products or ranges you have, or how your company will be affected by a recent news story or if you�re doing really well any awards you�ve won or are nominated for.

You only pay for the leads that come through to you, not for space on a page that may not be generating you business.

So what to do about this. Well assuming you have access to edit and add content to your website (either via FTP or through a Content Management System) you should go in and make sure that the information on your website is up to date.

In a PPC campaign you can decide what page an ad links through therefore you have the opportunity to give a potential customer exactly what they were looking for � make sure the page gives them what they are looking for.

In your campaign settings you choose what keywords and phrases you want your advert to display, and you choose what price you are willing to pay to get your ad displayed. The price you pay will go some way to dictating where in the list you will appear � generally the more you pay the higher you go. You can also set a maximum daily budget so you have complete control on your spend.
Mancala Technology are specialists in SEO Newcastle, Internet Marketing and Web Design Newcastle,

The Mystery Case Files series is back yet again for another compelling hidden object game that sets another level for this genre. Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst lets you again play as the famous agent as you travel back into Ravenhearst Manor trying to unravel deeper secrets after freeing Emma Ravenhearst in the previous game. But this time around, it will be more dangerous, more mysterious and even creepier than ever before experienced by your agent alter-ego.

After freeing Emma’s soul from the manor and failing your last case in the circus, it seems that you have a lot of trouble in your hands since you had also freed Charles Dalimar’s killing soul. Charles killed Emma from the previous game, but after Emma’s death, you are never certain on whether more restless souls were trapped inside this haunted mansion. But worse than all of these is that you’re life is now in danger too, and that’s why you have to solve this case fast before Charles’ soul comes back to haunt you.

Just as expected, Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst is really full of surprises from what we were used to play on its previous installments. This time around, you are free to explore the whole of Ravenhearst Manor as you like while playing puzzles, making scene interactions and finding hidden objects as you go. And what’s more convenient is the absence of a time limit, enabling you to explore the whole game as much as you like and penalizing your click spam by just making you lose control of the cursor for a brief period of time.

This unique gameplay gives a lot of freedom to the player and entails much decisive and analytical thinking. Inventory items gathered on a hidden object game from one scene can be used to interact on a later scene or on a previous scene you have already passed through. Therefore, backtracking and taking notes of clues is the order of the game, but don’t sweat remembering clues much though, because that’s where your handy dandy casebook plays its part – helping you remember important details (sometimes without you even noticing them) and helping you understand the story much better.

Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst is one of the many games featured and reviewed at Casualicious. Please visit our site to read more about Mystery Case Files: Return to Ravenhearst and get to play hundreds of other games worth your time and enjoyment.

Got a high appetite for risk and have little faith in the economy, I have something for you, Proshares ultra short ETFs. These ETF track the daily performance of a particular index and provide double the inverse of the daily returns of that index. This is what creates the high volatility. They trade easily just like individual stocks. They even have some funds that are 3x short the market. I have seen some of these ETFs move over 100% in value in the space of a week. You really want to be on the right side of the trade with these or you can get wiped out really quickly, but if you’re on the right side it`s great. There is an ETF for specific baskets of stocks. Example there is one for financial stocks, retail, real estate, international, and more. So you can pick your sector and go. One problem with these is they reset each day so you don`t want to hold for more than a couple of days. They also seem to lose a little bit of value each day when the market is somewhat flat. However on days where the Dow has has big swings or just goes steadily down from the open, these can move 10-30% in a day. I have seen one move 40% in a day before and over 100% in a week Look at the chart of SKF below around the dates of Nov 15 and the 23 the ETF went from around $150 to $300. That is real movement.

Now let me say I am making no guarantees that these ETFs will make any moves like that again. Please don`t invest based on what I say. I just wanted to point this out to any one who has a high-risk appetite and is looking for a opportunity.

Proshare not only goes short but they go long as well. If you feel the worst is behind us then look at the ultra long ETFs they act the same as the short funds just opposite. I have include a list of the funds currently offered by Proshares it has a brief description of the funds plus some performance stats. For more Info visit www.proshares.com

http://www.mylifesuks.com/

If you follow the easy steps below you can quickly be on your way to earning $500 per week or with a little more effort, $500 per day.

Step One

Identify your passions and hobbies so that you will not only make money with your brokering business, but enjoy working on it too! The first step in becoming a Joint Venture Broker is finding sites to broker for. Now this may take a little digging around at first but think of it this way, once you find a site to broker for you can be profiting from it for months if not years to come or go on www.joint-ventures-secret.com. So an hour or so effort in locating a cracking little site with a two tier affiliate program is a drop in the ocean compared to the rewards you can be reaping.

What gets you really pumped up and excited? What subject would you love your brokering business to be based around? You should be able to wake up and make that short walk to your home office with that excited feeling at what the day holds for you business wise.

Right, so I want to get your creative juices flowing with regards to your passions, hobbies and areas of expertise. List your answers to the following questions.

What are you interested in?

What are you passionate about?

Do you have a lot of knowledge about specific subjects or topics?

Do other people ask you for advice?

Now I know you`re probably saying to yourself that you don`t have any specialist knowledge. Don`t worry, you most certainly do have some kind of knowledge or skill that you can turn into a hugely profitable home based business.

You simply need to stop and think about your life experiences. Create a list of all the jobs you`ve had. Do the same for all of the hobbies you`ve ever pursued, all the volunteer work you`ve done and all the subjects you have an interest in.

Ask yourself these questions

Do you play any sports or are there any sports you`d like to know more about?

If you won the lottery what activities would you spend your money on?

What web sites do you visit when you`re just surfing the web for fun?

Are you a member of any forums or newsgroups?

Take a look through your book collection, are there any specialist books you own?

Do you have any specialist education or have you ever taken a class in a specialist subject like ceramic decoration for example?

Do you collect anything? If so what?

What television shows do you enjoy most? Are they in a specialist market?

Browse the magazine rack in your local bookstore.

Go to craft fairs and exhibitions and look out for these little niches you can exploit.

The reason I want you to start with a list of your passions and hobbies is because by starting off brokering deals on a subject you love will enable you to be even more motivated to get started. You can of course go after more lucrative markets once you are convinced that you can make money with this.

Find specific markets you can broker for from your list of passions and hobbies.

Step Two

Using clickbank drill down into a niche market and find an idea for the types of sites you want to broker for (If you haven`t done so already in step one).

Step Three

Affiliate directories find a web site with a two tier affiliate program that matches the criteria I will outline shortly. There is absolutely nothing technical about this system whatsoever. In fact, this is probably the hardest part of becoming a Joint Venture Broker, and this couldn`t be easier!

Remember we are looking for sites with two tier affiliate programmers. We also are looking for sites that:

Pay at least $10 commission per second tier sale (the higher the better. I certainly wouldn`t go lower than $10 because it will be harder to broker deals and also harder to make the serious cash this system offers).
Preferably provides the marketer with ready to go marketing materials like email promotions, articles, adverts, banner ads etc
Has a “cookie tracking system” for their affiliate program which means that even if the marketers you try to broker deals with don`t sign up on the day you contact them, but sign up months later, you still get credited for any sales they make months down the line.

Step Four

Again using clickbank start building up a list of site domain names of clickbank products in your market, saving the list of domain names in either Microsoft excel, word, notepad, or anywhere where you can save them.

Step Five

Go to your list of clickbank domain names and use the “Google: link” trick to find web sites already promoting products in the niche market you are brokering for. Add them to your list of site names. Now start contacting all of the site owners and try brokering deals. All this takes is an email (and possibly follow up emails).

Step Six

Using Google type in “(your niche market) ezine” to find tens of thousands of sites in your niche market that have ready made email lists to promote to. Start going through them and emailing them trying to broker deals and getting them to promote the site you are brokering for more details visit on www.easy-jv-manager.com. This trick in itself would take you months to broker all the deals available, yet each and every deal could be worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars to you.

Step Seven

Use the “Google: related” and “google:allintitle” tricks to find even more perfect sites to contact and try and broker deals with.

(Optional) Step Eight

Once you see how much you can make selling other peoples products, create your own and go out in search of brokering deals for yourself!

Swift and faithful
· Hart family armorial motto,
Celer atque fidelis, granted 1883 ·

When Captain Arthur Hart-Synnot came back to Ireland on a bright summer morning in July 1906, and walked down the gangplank of the overnight boat from Holyhead, he had not seen his father for two and a half years. The major general had received his telegram and was there to meet his eldest son and accompany him on the train for the last stage of his five-thousand-mile journey back from the Far East. A family of soldiers who had spent years in India and the farthest outposts of the British Empire, the Hart-Synnots were accustomed to the long sea journeys, extended personal separations, and occasional periods of great loneliness that military service required of them. As the train steamed close to the shore, passing the oyster beds along the ten-mile fjord that cut deep into the coast and divided County Down from Louth, and the sun caught the wooded slopes of the Mourne Mountains on the other side of the water, they began to catch up on family news.

At Newry Station the coachman was waiting with the old black landau. Once the luggage was transferred, the captain and the general were driven up the narrow country road, past the low stone walls and scrubby hedges that divided the small fields of South Armagh, gradually gaining height on the two-hour journey to Ballymoyer. When they reached the lodge and turned into the gates, a crowd of estate workers and staff from the house were waiting for them, with a banner strung across the drive welcoming Captain Hart-Synnot home.

Arthur knew many of the faces from his childhood, and some had served under his father in the Irish Brigade in South Africa. They cheered and waved, grabbed the shafts beside the two horses, pushed the carriage from behind, and helped turn the wheels up the long gravel avenue that ran through the parkland towards the house. This was not a family used to displays of affection in public, but Arthur stepped down and embraced his mother and his sisters on the porch. A brass band played, and a little later the family and guests sat down to a noisy lunch with many toasts. The captain made a speech in which he said how happy he was to be back home with friends and family.

Only four years before, his father had been given a similar hero`s return when he came back to Ballymoyer from the Boer War. Since then he had retired from the army and devoted his energies to the estate that his wife, Mary, had inherited, and which he had known since their marriage. With seven thousand acres of low hills, moorland, and small tenant farms, seventy miles north of Dublin, the property was one of the largest in the county of Armagh. The Synnots had made their money in the linen trade and mining and, unlike many other Irish landowners, had always been resident landlords. General Hart added his wife`s surname to his own to become General Hart-Synnot, confirming his place among the Anglo-Irish gentry. The general was eager to show Arthur the improvements he had begun to make on the estate demesne, the home farm that was not rented out to tenants, knowing his son shared the same love for the place he would one day inherit.

The original stone manor had been built in the eighteenth century in a gentle valley at a point where three brooks, after racing down from their own glens, reached flatter land and joined together to continue as one fast-running trout stream. In the early nineteenth century a more imposing house in the classical style, with a stucco façade of three stories and a colonnaded porch, had been added onto the earlier, rougher building, and the two were linked with creaking corridors and staircases. The library, the smaller bedrooms, and the servants` hall were in the old section at the back, but the principal bedrooms, drawing room, and dining room were in the grander addition, looking across the lawns and parkland to stands of beech on the hillside. Over the years the gardens had been landscaped and replanted, and the streams channeled and directed over weirs, but the sound of rushing water could still be heard all round the house, and gave a calming, almost drowsy background noise. For Arthur`s return, both parts of the house were full, with relatives who had come to greet him and would stay until the following day. The celebrations did not end till after dinner, when the general directed a fireworks display on the lawn. That night Arthur must have wondered how he was going to tell his family what had happened to his personal and emotional life on the other side of the world, and how he wanted nothing more than to put Ireland behind him as fast as possible and get back to Tokyo.

Two and a half years earlier, before he left for the East, Arthur had known almost nothing about Japan, and his ambitions were centered on the army. The military connection was hard to ignore at Ballymoyer. Portraits of mustachioed ancestors in full uniform were hung all over the house, along with their swords and honors. Military biographies and campaign histories filled the library shelves. Arthur`s grandfather General Henry Hart had edited Hart`s Army List, the annual compendium setting out names, rankings, and organization that was indispensable to army messes and clubs around the British Empire. His father was a major general who had fought Ashanti tribesmen in West Africa, the Zulus in Natal, the Egyptians at Tel el Kebir, and a whole range of recalcitrant natives in India and Afghanistan. His father`s brother Reginald was another major general, the better known because while still a young officer he had won the Victoria Cross, for crawling up a dry ravine in Afghanistan to rescue a wounded soldier, under withering fire from Afridi tribesmen shooting at him from behind rocks. Uncle Reginald`s book, Reflections on the Art of War, laying out his forthright approach to “push-on” soldiering, was an inspiration to young officers. His father`s other brother, Uncle Horatio, was a colonel with the Royal Engineers. In 1883, the three Hart brothers had jointly revived a coat of arms once used in the family, with a stag`s head and rampant antlers over the motto “Celer atque fidelis,” meaning “Swift and faithful.”

The soldiering tradition conditioned Arthur`s outlook and made him the sort of man he was. No one ever thought he would do anything else but become an officer. Family custom put him into the army, and family connections assisted his career through it. When Arthur left Sandhurst in 1890, he went out to India as a subaltern. He joined the 1st Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment at DumDum, near Calcutta, where his father was the colonel, and saw his first fighting in the mountains along the India-Afghanistan border, on a march to relieve a British force besieged by Pathan tribesmen in Chitral. When his Uncle Reginald, also serving in India, was sent to quell yet another rising by the Afridis around the Khyber Pass, he asked to have his nephew attached to the expedition.

After eight years in India, Arthur returned to England to go to Staff College, coached for the examination by his father. By this time his younger brother Ronald had, in his turn, just joined the East Surrey Regiment, and his father had come home to be a general. The British Empire was at its apogee. When Queen Victoria came to review her troops on the Aldershot parade ground in the summer of 1899, General Fitzroy Hart was able to ride past his sovereign at the head of his brigade, in plumed helmet, immaculate uniform, and highly polished boots, on a magnificent seventeen-hand Waler horse that belonged to Arthur, with his two sons jogging along beside him as members of his staff. At moments like this, when the pomp was at its most splendid and the military bands at their most stirring, it was not surprising that British rule over much of the world seemed so natural, or that families like the Harts could derive so much of their identity from it. A few months later, when that mastery came under challenge in southern Africa, and the Boer War broke out, professional soldiers like the Harts welcomed the chance for some sustained action against a more challenging enemy than the primitive tribesmen they usually found themselves up against. The war could bring honors and promotion. Arthur, his brother Ronald, his father, Fitzroy, and the seventeen-hand Waler all sailed for Cape Town in 1899 as part of the first Expeditionary Force, impatient to get there lest the fighting end too quickly. The only regret in the family was that Uncle Reginald, now in India, could not be released to come along, too.

Copyright © 2007 Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams from the book Sword and Blossom by Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko Williams. Published by the Penguin Group; May 2007;$16.00US; 978-0-14-311214-3

Peter Pagnamenta is a writer and television documentary maker, with a special interest in Japan. He conceived and wrote the eight-part BBC series Nippon, an archival and testimonial history of Japan`s recovery after 1945, as well as Bubble Trouble, about Japan in the 1990`s. Other series for the BBC include the twentieth-century industrial history All Our Working Lives, for which he wrote the book with Richard Overy, and the twenty-six-part People`s Century. He is a former editor of the weekly current-affairs television program Panorama.

Momoko Williams was born and brought up in Japan and went to Britain in 1966 after graduating from Meiji University, Tokyo. She has coordinated and produced programs for Japanese broadcasters in Britain and Japan. She worked on the major NHK series The Twentieth Century and Pacific War. Interested in Anglo-Japanese cultural connections, she initiated and produced the photographic exhibition Japanese in Britain, 1863-2001. She is married to an Englishman and lives in London.

Now as summer is about to use up its weeks and days, the fall is approaching bringing many a joy to those of us who await its annual return but to me out of all the wonders that are to be offered by the fall; it is without much room for doubt the return of the opera season which is amongst its greatest delights. As some may not be aware most opera houses are closed by summer’s brutal heat, perhaps because there none that have air conditioning or least as far as my knowledge stretches. I however feel that the heat in the auditorium is not the only thing that leads to opera houses being closed but the fact that most operas extend over the one and half hour mark; some going on for four hours with music that in all sincerity is not light as are the delicate strings of for instance Vivaldi.

Quite the opposite of being easy listening music as some might like to consider it, the music to be heard in operas is very heavy at times; to match any other kind in not only volume, (this considering that none of the music is being amplified by the use of electricity in any form) but in passion as well that goes beyond the sounds which are produced by orchestra and to the singing which is more then just words that are sung as opposed to spoken. In opera singers are required to act as well; making their ability to bring to live those characters just as important as their ability to sing notes in key. It is the music along with the performances being so intense that has guided me to the conclusion that opera is the sort of music which is not suited for the months of summer.

Of course I am aware that this may be an overly personal point of view on my part for the cause that leads opera houses to close down during the summer as it may also be the need of the performers to go on vacation and what better time to do so then when most of their audience are doing likewise. I however will say for my part that I find summer to be so intense in its zapping me of my energy that it does not even encourage me to want to play my opera DVDs but rather concentrate on listening to symphonies or sonatas or other such music that is not opera. To many music may express different people’s mood but to me it also expresses the atmosphere to be found in different seasons of year, for instance summer’s months are ideal for symphonies and other such orchestral music which is what prompted me to write a poem called “Summer As A Symphony” while fall’s months are the same to start the opera season which goes till the start of summer. Fall on the other hand with the vitality it gives me allows me to enjoy the energy that comes from opera, where in summer’s heat the same feelings would simply exhaust me. At the start of my book “New York’s Opera Society”, the main character Bill Albert also finds his strength to attend a performance of Wagner’s Gotterdammerung from all that is the fall, from its falling leaves to the holidays that come at this time of year.

Bill however is fictional as are most of the characters in my book “New York’s Opera Society” however as for myself there is one thing that I found strange about opera when I first started listening to it and that was how though many of the people who are opera fans are perhaps people of means who dress up in suits or intellectuals, though some may say snobs the stories connected to opera for the most part are about simple people. By “simple people” I have in mind not those who are of the upper social classes but those like the foot soldier who falls in love with the gypsy; whose name Carmen is that of the opera she stars in. It is precisely stories of people like this who give opera that feeling of passion as theirs are everyday stories of love, jealousy, anger and need that can even be found in many a film but in opera take on perhaps a more sophisticated tone given the background in which they are presented or the music and singing that make those lines so vivid. For instance when it comes to this sort of people we might take in to consideration the characters from the opera “La Boheme” who in poverty live the arts as it is bassically all they have to keep them company in the hardship life imposses on them.

I naturally am aware that many will always see the opera as perhaps being boring and stuffy but I believe that if they could just read the stories behind most operas they will see that a lot of them if not most of them are about people whose lives are not so different then those seen in many a film. In opera there is action as in Wagner’s “Sigfried” which depicts its main charact “Sigfried” doing battle with a dragon after which he takes on and defeats his grandfather (though unkwon to him at the time) Wonton, who had killed his father. As for drama what more could one ask then the story of “Othello” which is also portrayed in one of Verdi’s operas that could match Shakespeare’s version of the same story for all its tension which has filled many an auditorium through out the world. There is as one might understand much more to opera then meets the eye and for he or she who is willing to give it a try I sugest that he or she do the following. First that he or she before going to see an opera read the story of the opera as to know what is happing on stage and prefably where ever possible to see it at an opera house that offers subtitles so he or she might follow the words. In my opinion seeing an opera without understanding what is being sung is as senseless as seeing a film without understanding what is being spoken.

As for the music, this I do strongly recomend any perspective opera spectator to get hold of it beforehand in order that he or she might become familiar with it. It is dificult even for someone like myself who has seen many an opera to hear an opera for the first time. The music is more complicated then popular music, therefore it is not so easy to pick up on the melodies and harmonies let alone apreciate them. It is this the cause of why I suggest going out and buying a CD of the music and prefably not the whole opera at first but highlights as knowing the music to the whole opera will not be a real advantage over knowing just one hour of the music.

Another reason for this recomendation is that it often happens that people do not like a song after hearing it for the first time but perhaps after having been forced to hear it many times on the radio or on TV they start liking that song that at first they did not like. This in my opinion would apply more with opera as the songs which in operas are called arias are longer and slightly more complicated not only in melody but in harmony then the average popular song so perhaps those who have visited an opera and walked away with boredom should try my sugestion and who knows perhaps next time they will not feel so disapoited after the opera. This is also the strategy I sugest parents to follow who are taking their child to an opera to see a performace for the first time which I have expanded on in my story “The Little Opera Singer” which can be found on several websites through out the internet.

Newlywed`s Check-Out of Gift Return Lines And Check-In To ForTheMoon.com Online Honeymoon Registry Service.

Release announces forthemoon.com the premier interactive honeymoon registry service as an alternative to traditional wedding gift registries, with company background.

(PRWEB) January 17, 2005- Many newlyweds-to-be already have all of the toasters and TV`s they need and are moving into a new gift registry era where helicopter tours, candlelight dinners and romantic honeymoon suites fill their online shopping carts. By choosing forthemoon.com online honeymoon registry service, there are no last minute dashes to the store or unwanted gifts for couples to return. For The Moon was designed by newlyweds for newlyweds and offers travel planning, personal service and convenience for both busy couples and their guests.

Wedding costs are on the rise and many couples find themselves unable to afford a honeymoon after the expense of the wedding. By helping couples to replace unwanted and un-needed gifts, For The Moon and her sister company Alderman Travel have linked couples and guests together for a unique online experience that is convenient, fun and economical for all. “For The Moon has given me the opportunity to help couples build the honeymoon of their dreams and pay for it”, says Owner/Creator of For The Moon and Alderman Travel, Tana Alderman, “I always hear couples talking about wanting to do something creative and original for their wedding and guests. I really feel that honeymoon registries are helping to meet the emotional and economic needs of today`s couple and that this industry will continue to grow”.

Whether couples choose to book travel on their own or through Alderman Travel, For The Moon is the perfect service to use in place of traditional house-ware registries. For those couples who have it all and want to try something new or need help stretching the honeymoon dollar just a bit further, this service is exactly what they are looking for.

About For The Moon

Newlyweds and owners of forthemoon.com, Tana & Derick Alderman began in 1999 planning unique weddings and events in Colorado and have expanded into a successful nationwide honeymoon registry, travel and destination wedding service. With over 18 years of combined experience the Alderman`s and their knowledgeable honeymoon specialists personally assist couples to create memorable weddings and honeymoons. Through the website www.forthemoon.com couples can create a custom online honeymoon registry that is available to family and friends for gift purchases and wedding information.

For The Moon
Contact: Tana & Derick Alderman
1-800-990-4008
www.forthemoon.com or www.aldermantravel.com

###

Every visitor to your web site is a precious potential client. It was hard work to get that site visitor there in the first place, so you should make every effort to encourage the potential client back.

The bottom line is that if the visitor found what they were looking for quickly and easily, they are much more likely to come back to your site. Here are six additional techniques you can use to help bring visitors back to your site. They are:

1. Email Newsletters

2. Bookmark Buttons

3. Periodic Updates

4. Games

5. Contests

6. Message Boards

A newsletter is perhaps the best tool for bringing people back to your web site. To have a newsletter all you need is a simple form on your web site to collect user`s email addresses and an email client. That`s it! It you want to go even more low tech, just have a bit of text that says, “Email us at youremail@yourdomain.com to Join our Newsletter.”

Once you have a few people to send a newsletter too, try to think of ways that you could provide useful information to potential clients. Maybe you will offer discounts to newsletter members, or perhaps send them articles on topics related to your site. Always have a link for subscribers to opt-out. And don`t forget to request newsletter readers to visit your web site in every newsletter you send out.

A bookmark button reminds people visiting your site that they may want to visit your site again. When people bookmark your site, they are of course more likely to come back. Bookmark buttons can be easily created in javascript.

Periodic Updates could be a quote of the day or an image of the day or perhaps new articles every month or week. Anything that will make visitors want to come back for the next update will suffice. Once you have determined what your periodic update is, remind your visitors to come back for the update. It won`t do much good if your visitors don`t know about your updates.

Games in Flash or javascript can be quite simple, yet quite entertaining. Perfect examples are those Orbitz ads. If you don`t know what I am talking about, Orbitz has Flash game ads that include golfing, pitching, piloting blimps and other fun things. They are really simple and are designed to get clicks more than repeat business, as the games are ads, but on a web site, similar games would get visitors come back.

Contests are great for web promotion and brining people back to web sites. People who enter the contest you may sponsor will want to come back to see if they won. Also, if it is a user submittal contest, people will want to come back to see the winning entries – especially if they have won! You may even get people sending word of your contest to their friends. Viral marketing, where friends tell friends and so on, is extremely effective.

Message boards can become a second home for some people. If you have an active board, people will come to your web site just to see what people have posted.

Regardless of your choice, just make sure you give them a reason to come back.

Halstatt Pires is with the Internet marketing firm MarketingTitan.com – a San Diego Internet marketing and advertising company providing search engine optimization services and offering automated web site systems through BusinessCreatorPro.com.

“Ouvea is everything you`d expect in a South Pacific island. Twenty kilometers of unbroken white sands border the lagoon on the west side of the island and extend far out from shore to give the water a turquoise hue. The wide western lagoon, protected by a string of coral islands and a barrier reef, is the only one of its kind in the Loyalties. On the ocean side are rocky cliffs, pounded by surf, but fine beaches may be found even here. At one point on this narrow atoll only 450 meters separates the two coasts. Traditional circular houses with pointed thatched roofs are still common in the villages”.

Those words appeared in the 1985 edition of my South Pacific Handbook after a visit in 1983. Just over 20 years later I returned to Ouvea to discover that little had changed in this large French colony east of Australia.

Most Ouveans still live in traditional thatched case (houses) and the beach is as dazzling as ever. On my first evening there, as I watched the red fireball set slowly across the lagoon, I felt a strong affinity with my previous visit.

Yet something terrible had happened in my absence. On May 5, 1988, 300 French elite troops stormed a cave near Gossanah in northern Ouvea to rescue 16 gendarmes captured two weeks earlier by Melanesian freedom fighters.

Nineteen Kanaks (the collective name used by the indigenous peoples of New Caledonia) died in the assault, including several who suffered extrajudicial execution at the hands of the French police after being wounded and taken prisoner. None of the hostages had been harmed.

Thus began one of the final chapters of what is now known as the evenements (events) of the 1980s. Three years earlier independence leader Eloi Machoro had been murdered in cold blood by police snipers as he stood outside a rural farmhouse near La Foa, on New Caledonia`s main island, Grand Terre.

By 1987 France had 14,000 troops stationed in its mineral-rich Melanesian colony, one for every five Kanaks. The independence movement was to be crushed one way or another.

When I tried to visit the cave at Gossanah on my recent trip, I was told that the area was taboo to allow the spirits time to rest.

Instead I was permitted to visit the grave of Djoubelly Wea in Gossanah and allowed to take pictures of his home. My host on Ouvea told me the story. Evidently, the hostages had been taken by young Kanak activists from other parts of the island, and the captive gendarmes were brought to Gossanah only because the cave was considered remote.

Residents of the area weren`t involved. Yet when the French police arrived in search of their comrades, they rounded up the people of Gossanah and assembled them on a football field in front of the village church.

There they were tortured for information, and Wea`s father was among those who died of shock. Later 33 Ouveans were sent to prison in France, Djoubelly Wea among them.

These events chastened Kanaks and French alike, and the heads of the main political parties, the Kanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou and the representative of the French settlers Jacques Lafleur, were called to Paris by Prime Minister Michel Rocard to negotiate and eventually sign a peace treaty known as the Matignon Accords.

A referendum on independence was promised in 1998, and massive economic aid was to be channeled into the Kanak regions. An amnesty was granted to all those arrested during the troubles, and no investigation into the Ouvea massacre or the murders of several dozen other Kanaks by French settlers or troops would be required.

Fast forward to May 1989, as the top Kanak leaders Jean-Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene arrive on Ouvea for a commemorative ceremony exactly one year after the massacre.

As the leaders are being received at the chefferie (chiefly house) of Wadrilla near the center of the island, Djoubelly Wea steps forward and shoots the pair dead at point blank range. Wea was reflecting a feeling still palpable in New Caledonia that Tjibaou had sold out to the French and derailed the struggle of independence.

Tjibaou`s bodyguard killed Wea, the final shot of the evenements. Today the chefferie of Wadrilla is much the same as it was in 1989, a large thatched case surrounded by a palisade of driftwood logs.

Across the coastal highway, a large monument has been erected to the 19 Kanak martyrs of 1988. Designed with two curving white walls to resemble a cave, the monument bears the photo, name, and date of birth of each victim.

Their traditional war clubs have been placed on the back side of the monument and their remains are interred below.

No memorial to Jean-Marie Tjibaou exists on Ouvea but the French have constructed a massive cultural center to his memory in their stronghold Noumea.

In fairness, it must be said that Tjibaou only considered the Matignon Accords a temporary stop on the road to independence. His assassination froze the agreement into a sort of permanent solution which the French have used to justify continuing colonial rule ever since.

The promised 1998 referendum was never held. Instead an updated treaty called the Noumea Accord was signed. This postponed the referendum for another 15 or 20 years and promised many things the French government has yet to deliver.

For example, a key provision creating a special New Caledonian citizenship status intended to control immigration from France was declared unconstitutional by a French court in 1999.

Metros (metropolitan French) continue to flood into the territory (in violation of United nations resolutions on the norms of conduct for colonial powers in non-self-governing areas) and Europeans may soon from a clear majority of the population.

Toward the end of my stay I visited the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center on the Tina Peninsula, 12 kilometers northeast of New Caledonia`s capital Noumea. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, it was built by French contractors between 1994 and 1998 at a cost of over US$50 million. The center opened on May 4, 1998, 10th anniversary of the assassination of Jean-Marie Tjibaou.

No visitor can help but be impressed by the spectacular botanical garden interwoven with references to Kanak legends which encircles the center`s three villages.

A contemporary art gallery, temporary and permanent exhibitions of Kanak and other Pacific art, a library, an audiovisual room, indoor and outdoor theaters, and a large ceremonial area are only some of the center`s outstanding features.

Yet the Tjibaou Cultural Center presents Kanak culture as a regional folklore rather than a national tradition.

Events such as the Ouvea Massacre and the other murders of the 1980s are barely mentioned. A room in Village Three provides photos and texts on the life of Jean-Marie Tjibaou, but there`s no explanation as to why he was assassinated or the background of his assassin.

The 19th century land seizures and the muscle flexing and maneuvering that have prevented independence are carefully avoided. The highlight for me was an amazing three-meter-high bronze statue of Tjibaou himself, clad in a Roman toga, on a hill overlooking the center.

Tjibaou was the last real Kanak leader, and in a land where the spirits of the dead have an important role in the lives of the living, his soul must be suffering.

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David Stanley is the author of Moon Handbooks South Pacific which has a chapter on New Caledonia. His guide to New Caledonia and New Caledonia travel photos may be perused online.

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, so long as the byline and resource box are included. Please do not use this article without the byline and resource box. Many thanks!

Qualicum means “where the dog salmon run”. The natural and man-made beauty of the area certainly isn`t congruous with the image “dog salmon” conjures up! Qualicum Beach is a beautiful little town with amazing scenery and a quaint village-style downtown with many shops and restaurants.

Time stops in Qualicum. A major effort has been made to provide a beautiful town centre in this community. There are no fast food restaurants in Qualicum Beach because all restaurants have to have table service. The average age of residents is between 59 and 60, so it`s considered a retirement community – but it is much more than that.

I select Eagleview, a bed and breakfast on Canyon Crescent, for our accommodation. I ask myself, “Did you choose this one for its private suites and private baths, or because it`s in a quiet neighbourhood bordered by a creek and ravine?”

Well, the truth is: I chose it because the owners` names are Roy and Linda, and my wife and I are Ron and Linda. The coincidence is just too intriguing and my curiosity gets the better of me. Sometimes, intuition cannot be argued with.

As it turns out, we have so many things in common with our hosts that it`s uncanny. And, to top it off, Roy`s and (my) Linda`s parents were good friends.

Roy and Linda are cheerful and friendly and have very good knowledge of the area. Even before we arrive, Linda provides me with a top-ten list of things to do. They know their business, and, along with Jackson the greeter – a cute little Jack Russell, they make us feel at home immediately.

Their yard and gardens are immaculate. The property backs onto a ravine with a marvelous trail winding through the ravine and ends very close to a beach park. We find this bed and breakfast relaxing, calming, soothing and rejuvenating. The tranquil setting is ideal for a get-away.

We have Linda`s mom and dad in tow and they are thrilled with the garden suite. The private entrance spills directly into the garden patio. The suites have luxurious beds and linens and private baths. Each suite has a cozy fireplace. Very little has not been thought of. Special touches are everywhere and Roy and Linda have anticipated our every need.

With the forest and ravine right behind our bedroom window, I awake in the morning to a symphony of songbirds. Finches, robins, sparrows, chickadees, juncos, and others provide the melody while a Raven provides the vocals and a woodpecker adds a light percussion.

There`s lots to see and do in Qualicum Beach. The downtown has several shops, stores, and places to eat. The city hall is beautiful and Qualicum Foods, a local grocery store, was voted Canada`s nicest grocery store. It`s a great place to stop for tea and treats or a take-out lunch.

Cathedral Grove is a must-see and is just a few kilometers from Qualicum. The old growth forest guards the highway through McMillan Park. On the way, you`ll pass by Cameron Lake – a great place for a summer picnic or swim, right off the highway. There are 800-year-old trees and there`s an interpretive trail system winding through the park, so you can get up close and personal with trees that are much older than Canada.

Since we have had the Qualicum experience on more than one occasion, this time we`re looking for something totally new. We`d heard that the views from Little Mountain towards Mount Arrowsmith were spectacular, so we head on up. The winding road rises sharply. At the top, we park beside the concrete abutments and walk the short distance up the path to the viewpoint. Wow! The cliffs drop very sharply, so caution is required. The entire valley between Little Mountain and Mount Arrowsmith lies before us.

Just a few kilometers down the road is the greatest little tourist trap, perhaps in the world – the “Old Country Market” at Coombs, BC. It has real live goats that live on the grass roof for most of the summer. You can even buy a T-shirt here with a Goats on the Roof logo! You can find anything at the Old Country Market. The owners shop the world for rare treasures. And there`s also a great deli-style restaurant where you can eat in or buy bread, baked goods, fresh meat, cheese and many other “to go” items. And there`s an amazing ice cream bar. This market is so popular that it`s been surrounded by other shops and businesses that try to imitate it.

Qualicum Beach has breathtaking scenery – whether you`re at the top of Little Mountain looking over the valley towards Coombs and the Mountains to the west, or at the beach – which goes for miles. When the tide`s out, you can walk forever and comb to your heart`s content. When the tide comes in, the water warms from the sand and you can swim or wade in the water. It`s very shallow in places and great for children to play in.

As we leave Eagleview Bed and Breakfast, we feel like we are leaving good friends behind. Thanks Roy and Linda for a great stay! Enjoy Qualicum Beach – we sure did!