Site Review Blog

Typically when we think of taking a holiday, we are looking for some sort of escape from our everyday life.  We do things like going to Vegas, taking a cruise or heading to a Pacific Island.  There are cases when you might consider somewhere other than the popular choice destinations for your next vacation and this interesting website about Dark Tourism might give you some insight to alternatives.  There are a whole range of different types of grief tourism, from seeing an old battlefield, Disaster area (both natural and man-made), Holocaust and many more.

You are probably wondering why anyone would want to go to some of these places, like I was, until I read a little on the subject.  The most common theme to me is that for some people, visiting the site of some of our worst atrocities allows the healing to begin.  You may have lost family or close friends to some horrific event and just visiting the site for yourself can sometimes help.

There are literally hundreds of destinations that could be considered to be on the list.  Everyone would probably be aware of 9/11 and a lot of the western world were affected in some way by those events.  New York, and the whole freedom of the Western world took a turn from this event, and ”Ground Zero” is a site that attracts a lot of visitors and probably will for several years to come.  This website has several countries listed and information on some of the locations you might want to research or vist.

One of the most fascinating types of grief tourism is thanatourism. Like you, I didn’t even know what the word meant until I looked!  Well, it is the description of an ancient sky burial ritual of Buddhists in Tibet.

The website is well laid out and easy to navigate.  The articles are well researched and provide a fascinating read even if you would not consider taking a vaction to some of these places.

Visit www.grief-tourism.com

Are you still watching TV on a 26″ screen or less? Still hire Movies on Video tape? You are considering getting a bigger TV, maybe a DVD recorder or TiVo but just don’t have any idea about all this new high-tech stuff.  you have seen the price of the latest flat panel tv’s and don’t want to make the wrong choice for such an expensive item.  Well, you are not alone in this department at all.  Fortunately, help is at hand with up to date info fom the experience of people who have recently purchased some of these items in the TV Technology Blog.  The guys who run this blog make fairly regular posts on all of the high-tech TV and personal entertainment electronic devices.

You get some down to earth and easy to read info in language that everyone can understand.  The posts are well thought out and provide a question, then a series of answers and some even have a summary saying how or why a particular option was chosen from so many available. If you want to understand the difference between LCD and Plasma technologies then you will find that here.  The Latest buzz is High Definition or HDTV technology and this is one of the key areas of comment and discussion on this site. Learn a little about what DVI and HDMI are before going to your local electrical retail store only to be confused by the slick salesman trying to sell you something you may not want or need.

So, if it is time to retire your aging tv, and put in a brand new flat panel into your lounge room then by reading this blog, and learning a little before you go shopping, hopefully you will get a better deal and understand what the salesman is on about.  I jsut wish this site was around a year ago, before I laid down $3K on a brand new Plasma.

Visit  www.hi-tech-tv.com

If you are looking to learn or teach English as a second language then ESLgo provides a range of resources. They bring together information for both people who are wanting to Learn English as well as information for people who do teach or want to teach English.

They provide over 40 free ESL Classes online.  The classes are structured to cover the Basics of learning the language and have several courses at each stage.  The stages are Beginner, Low Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper intermediate and Advanced.  By following the Courses and then participate in the practice forums you will increase your knowledge and skills of the English language.

As noted, the other part of this site provides information and resources for people to teach English as a second language. With information on how to  develop lesson plans (including some free lesson plans), letter and written skills and once again Teachers development forums.  One of the resources presented is the English teaching store.  The store contains books that are divided into several categories from theory and Classroom activities.

The site is run by Jim, who has extensive personal experience in Teaching English in Korea.  The information and resources of this site are vast.  The website is loosly divided into 2 parts with a logical seperation between learning and teaching.

So, if English is not your first language, or even if you just wish to “brush up” on some aspects, you could take a look at some of the free online classes and see for yourself.

Visit www.eslgo.com

Local Postcards is an online shop that sells - yes you guessed it, Postcards.  They differ from picking up a postcard from a tourist outlet as they sell both new and used Postcards.  They have an inventory of individual postcards from most areas of the UK, including Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  With their inventory, if you forgot to grab a postcard from one of the small villages you visited, you might just be able to find one on this site.  The condition of each card is noted along with a fairly large picture of each so you will know exactly what you are purchasing.

In addition to Postcards, they also have a selection of Books.  The books are typically of Local Historic significance. They also have a small selection of Maps.  All pricing is in GBP (Pounds) and Euro and they accept several methods of payment.

So, if you have been to the UK and looking for a particular picture, you might find a postcard here with the picture you are seeking.

Visit www.localpostcards.co.uk

Nearly everyone who owns a website or runs a web business is looking for the best possible way to either promote thier products or to profit from their website. I want to introduce you to something that you may or may not have heard of. pre sell pages or HMP (Hosted Marketing Pages) is a concept that has been around for a couple of years and is probably the most under-utilised method of marketing on the Internet today.

A HMP or presell page is where you get a marketing page for your product or service Hosted as a page on Somebody else’s website. It is done in such a way so that it looks just like another content page on their website.  Not only is it a hosted page, but they usually have some very well placed deep links into your site.  Now there are a lot of reasons why someone might want to do this, but of course the major ones include things like getting a page on what is considered to be an Authority site, such as on an .edu domain.  A page on say a University site that talks about your site gives a lot of credibility to you and that is the edge that presell pages offers over other methods of marketing.  Of course, the other edge is that the links to you are embedded within unique content about you as well.

Now we know a little about, lets look at the how.  In order for this to work, the best way is to use a broker type service such as Presell Page Man. They act as a broker putting sellers and buyers in touch with each other, and generally have an inventory of sites that will host your HMP.

If you have ever tried to get .edu text links you would know how hard it is, but if you want to go even better and have some content hosting on .edu that gives great credence to you and will certainly blast the competition away, then this concept might be what you are looking for.  I can really only begin to explain the concepts here, but if you want more info about how HMP pages can help you or even more detail as to what they are then check out the FAQ

Now, for a webmaster who owns an established content or Authoritive site on a subject this might be a way for you to earn some extra income. As a webmaster, you are always looking for unique content right? why not have someone pay you to host their content!  There are a few “rules” that keep the whole HMP concept alive and working, and that is of course that a webmaster should NEVER disclose the fact that he has HMP pages as part of his (or her) website.  This adds to the credibility of both your site as well as to the Buyers site.  A correctly written HMP will look exactly like any other content page on your site, right down to the internal mavigation structure (and maybe even the contextual advertising block you have on all of your content pages).  The secret is to not let it resemble and “infomercial” in any way, shape or form, it is just part of your site.

Visit www.presellpageman.com

NowBlogging.net is a new Free Blog hosting site.  You can sign up and get a free blog within a few minutes.  They make use of the Open Source LifeType blog engine.  The software they have chosen looks to do the job quite well.  They give you 10Meg of space to upload your images and you can even put them into galleries.  With over 80 different templates to choose from, you should be able to find one that suits your new blog.

If the 80+ templates are not to your liking, you even have the opportunity to create your own skin and upload it.  I don’t know of too many other free blogging sites that allow this.  Yes, they do have some restrictions, and that is if you create your own template then you must include their header - it is not too intrusive and just a text link back to nowblogging.net and a single Adwords link block.

All Blogs are in their own sub-domain.  When you sign up, choose your username carefully as it will become the sub-domain for your blog. So, if you choose fred as your username, then your blog will be found at fred.nowblogging.net  As this is a fairly new site, if you get in quick, you will have the opportunity to grap a premium name for your blog. 

The site still has a few things missing, but as far as signing up for a blog, that all works just fine.  What I liked about the admin panel of this blog is that the owner of a blog can invite other writers by giving them their own username and password.  They only grant the necessary permission to add and edit blog content, and not to change other aspects of the blog. So if you want a blog that you can easily invite other’s to write with you, grab yourself an account and start blogging at nowblogging.net

Visit nowblogging.net

Introducing NextGenerationHost.com - They are a new web hosting company.  They offer both Shared and Reseller web hosting with Cpanel Control Panel.  The plans look reasonable for the prices they are charging. They have some great specials - on some accounts they are including Domain registration.  What sets NextGeneration apart from their competition is that they offer additional services that might be of benefit to new webmasters.  From the same company you purchase your hosting, you can also purchase SEO or Search Engine Optimization Services.  You no longer have to go out and look for a SEO company, you can deal with someone you already know and trust to do this work for you.

They offer 24/7 support via email and telephone, and provide an uptime guarantee.  While a guarantee does not mean your website will always be online, it does give you peace of mind that they take availibility seriously.

If you are considering a new website and you want to spread your sites around, take a look at what a new hosting company might be able to offer you.

Visit nextgenerationhost.com