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The following is a list of sites around the internet that I hope you might find interesting or useful. They're nothing to do with the Cook Islands...if you're looking for sites which are about the islands, click here.

This web site was designed with the help of a tool produced by a privately owned company in the USA called Virtual Mechanics. I tried literally dozens of products before finding this one. It's simplicity itself to use - I've never designed a web site before, so it must be easy!!!! And creation is done using WYSIWG (what you see is what you get) - in other words, you build the pages and you see what they look like as you go along. There's absolutely no coding needed, thank goodness. It costs US$49, but it's worth every cent in my opinion. I particularly liked their approach to evaluation as well. You can download the full product and try it out for 30 days. And it only counts the days you actually use it, rather than giving you 30 calendar days. Click here to go to the company's home page, or here if you want to go directly to information about Site Spinner.

NTL are my internet service provider, and as a subscriber, they've given me a generous 55MB of web space free to create this site. Their high speed broadband service is brilliant too. Click here to go to the NTLworld.com homepage.

The menu system on this web site is thanks to Dynamicdrive.com. They provide free original DHTML scripts and components which use the latest DHTML and JavaScript technology. Not sure what I'm going on about...well, neither am I. What it comes down to is that you can take some scripts they've created, modify them to suit your needs and use them on your web site for nothing! It really is easy.

I'm a huge fan of the Google search engine, but I haven't always been able to find what I wanted when creating this site. If you want to use some alternative search tools, try the Search Engine Watch site. It has the top choices in various categories.

I'm a great cat lover, and until recently our home was ruled by our 16 year old feline friend, Kiri (yes, WAS named after the world famous opera singer from New Zealand, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa!). Sadly, she died a few weeks ago. If you're into cats, you'll love one of my favourite sites on the net. It's called, quite simply, Cat Stuff, and it's full of graphics, articles, information, stories, software...everything to do with cats. Purr-fect!

Let your computer search for ET when you're not using it! The SETI@home program is a special kind of screensaver. Like other screensavers it starts up when you leave your computer unattended, and it shuts down as soon as you return to work. What it does in the interim is unique. While you are getting coffee, or having lunch or sleeping, your computer will be helping the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by analyzing data specially captured by the world's largest radio telescope. It's the work of Berkerley University in the USA. I've been using it for a couple of years now...but I haven't found ET yet. Maybe you'll have more luck.

Makuini Menehira is the wife of a friend, and a lady with a wonderful voice that you have to hear. Makuini (pronounced Ma-Queenie) was born in Wanganui in New Zealand. She studied at the prestigious St. Mary's College in Auckland where she was tutored for 8 years in opera, by the world renowned, Dame Sister Mary Leo, teacher to many of New Zealand's great international singers including Dame Kiri Te Kawana and Dame Malvina Major. She lived for a time in the Cook Islands, and her home is now in the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England. She's just released a new album which is stunning. You can listen to excerpts and learn more about this amazing performer by clicking here.

Our Kiri came from the UK's oldest and largest feline charity, The Cat's Protection League. They rescue and rehome unwanted and abandoned cats. Please pay their web site a visit. Not only will you learn about all their wonderful work, there's also loads of information about caring for cats, a fabulous photo gallery and details of how you can help the charity.

If, like me, you think of yourself as a free spirit who loves to explore the world, then pay a visit to 1yearout.com which offers advice for the independent traveller based on personal experience. It's geared particularly to the backpacking, gap year student, but it's an excellent piece of work with loads of helpful information about all sorts of places, not just the Cook Islands. And I wholeheartedly endorse one piece of advice they offer to all travellers: "Grab the opportunity and make sure you experience everything on offer first time round - the world has so much to explore, chances are you might not travel to the same place again, no matter how much you intend to go back". (Click the logo on the left to open the site in a new window)