Links

I decided it might be a good idea to include some links that may be of interest to the casual visitor. I've grouped them in an arbitrary manner, and may well regroup them in the future along equally whimsical lines.

Sites That I Built (Or Had A Hand In)
Andy Quan's Home Page	I think this was the first time someone had asked me to create a site for them. Andy, a delightful, multi-talented Canadian chappy, now resident in Australia, started this site around about the time his first books got published. Once I had delivered the first incarnation of it, he got to grips with the whole web site editing thingy, and now maintains it quite happily all on his own.
Anzac Framing	Russell Hollings was one of the first friends I met in New Zealand. In addition to being an accomplished artist, he runs a very successful picture framing business. He asked me to get his business on this ole interweb thingy, so this is the result. It's a bit basic, but these days he has a better idea of what could be on the site, so plans are afoot to update and extend it.
Pastoral Theology	This is a site that I'll be working on quite a bit over the next few months. It's for my dear friend Philip Culbertson. In one of his many roles, Philip is pressed to publish widely, and needed a web-based vehicle for promoting his books, and publishing some of his pastoral theology work. So, this is it. After the initial launch, it went a bit quiet for a while because we were both really busy. However, the look has been updated, and there's a shedload of more material that needs to go on it, so that's happening right now.
Revitalize	This one is to promote the alternative healing therapies of Jackie Segers, a very dear old friend of Luke's, and a new friend of mine. Jackie has been practising reflexology for many years, and over the years has added other, complimentary therapies to her arsenal, including reiki, craniosacral therapy, and more recently, indian head massage. Personally, I was particularly chuffed with the title page of this one, although I just noticed that it goes a bit skew-wiff in Firefox, so some rework might be in order.
United Way	United Way of New Zealand is a meta-charity. They collect donations which are then distributed to other charitable organisations. They also help allocate time from people who want to do something for their community. They are particularly good at helping businesses to do this, providing programmes for corporate involvement in voluntary work. I've been working on the site for a while, and the new version is almost ready to go. I'm just waiting for the word.
Funny Sites
Dilbert	If I don't check Dilbert for a few days, I always catch up eventually. There have been periods where it's gone off the boil with me for a while, and then suddenly something will come along that's just a bang-on reflection of contemporary corporate life. Excellent stuff.
b3ta	This site is the home of much wackiness, zaniness, and various other adjectives like that. If the text editor I'm using to write this had a built in thesaurus (or if I could be bothered to get off my fat arse and get the proper, paper version of the same), I'm sure I would have a few more such words to stick in here. Also, you can sign up with them, and they send you doses of the most recent insanity every week.
Rather Good!	I can't remember if I found this site as a result of b3ta, or I found bt3a as a result of this site. But either way, it's got some rather good stuff on it. Often quite twisted, but rather good all the same. I particularly like George, Destiny's Child and Northern.
Useful Sites
Heraldry	This is a great resource for resarching family names. It has been very handy in getting mottos for my clan pages. And the coats of arms are so pretty!
DVD Backup	This is a handy reference page for information about creating backup copies of DVDs. That's something I first got into when I started buying magic DVDs, which aren't cheap. One little scratch, and you're stuffed and have to start again. Hmm. Better to make backups, then store the originals away somewhere safe. That way, if the disc gets scratched, you haven't lost all that money you spent.
CSS Reference	This is a highly useful site if you're old-fashioned, like me, and prefer to create web pages by typing directly into a text editor rather than making life easier by using a nice WYSIWYG HTML thing.
Magic Sites
The Magic Cafe	Discussion forum for all kinds of magic. I tend not to post much these days, but I went through a period of being a bit of a regular. I prefer to spend time in the company of other magicians in the real world rather than in cyberspace. It's much easier to grasp the nuances of a sleight in person!
Penguin Magic	This is probably my main online shopping destination, although I don't think I'l be buying much for a while because I have so much to be getting along with already. They provide a very good service, and have good, broad range. Also, they sell instant downloads, which is a good thing. You pay, and then you get access to a downloadable, instructional video clip right away. Nice.
ellusionist	After being stung badly by the nasty people at Pete Best's Magic Warehouse (a site that was once great, and quickly went downhill), I went off online magic shopping for quite a while. My first visit to ellusionist brought me back in to the fold. It was also my first experience of buying a downloadable video clip - in this case, King Rising (a self-levitation effect that I really like).