Ria Clauss from Rainbow Creations Body Art was one of the judges at the seminal Australian Body Art Carnivale Eumundi 2007 held recently to great acclaim.

Photos of the workshops and participants in the competition are now displayed on Rainbow’s site.

Explore the exciting new wedding reception packages at Maleny Manor - there is now eight splendid alternatives for all budgets and tastes.

The Manor treats you and your wedding guests to exceptional food and service as you enjoy the best day of your life in the elegant Manor and its spacious grounds with glorious vistas of the Sunshine Coast below.

The Queensland Litter Prevention Alliance has added some pertinent Litter Facts which are guaranteed to enlighten people about the abundance of waste which is spoiling our planet.

There’s a table listing the times it takes for various waste substances to break down - for example, disposable nappies take 500 years to break down, whereas polystyrene cups NEVER break down.

The program for next year’s Hartwood Country Music Festival which is held every year near Tamworth, can be found on singer, Paul McCloud’s site. Paul’s tour itinerary and latest news is also available.

Eurofilter Asia Pacific, which manufactures dust collectors and provides industrial filtration solutions has expanded its business into China with its first offshore development company (ODC) in Zhangjiagang city, China.

A must-bookmark for all Sunshine Coast home builders and developers!

Building certifier Luke Jones now has a web presence for his Sunshine Coast building approvals business. Leapfrog Approvals certifies development approvals and provides compliance consultation on the requirements of the Building Code of Australia.

The Plantation web site displays a gracious Noosa hinterland home, which is now sold.

Similar sites which display exclusive, luxury Noosa homes and real estate can be designed for similar special purposes by Sibagraphics.

Professional photographers Bella Designs and Imagery are offering their wedding photography services through the Noosa Wedding Ring.

All photos are taken with professional digital photographic equipment with no limit on the number of photographs taken.

Another quick and easy upgrade to the new Dexter model of Wordpress. Posts can now be easily tagged as well as categorised.

At SEO by the Sea, there’s a very insightful article about the possible factors Google is using to ascertain the relative values of blogs.

Another successful and swift update completed for the Siblog. Wordpress gets better and better - now with inbuilt sidebar widgets and a plethora of new plugins, this software is clean and convenient. And best of all, Google loves it!

The latest Site Reference newsletter reiterates the important rule we’ve known and abided by since we began our business in 1998 - DON’T USE FLASH INTROS no matter how much clients may insist, grovel and beg.

“Please, don’t use a Flash intro on your website. You’d think everyone would realise they’re a bad idea by now, but every web designer still gets clients who just don’t seem to realise that Flash intros are universally mocked and hated. Don’t be one of those people.”

Here’s a list of some of the reasons why flash intros and indeed why pure flash sites should be avoided at all costs.

• Flash intros delay site visitors finding what they came for.
• Gratuitous animation is superfluous.
• Without html content, people without flash enabled will see nothing on visiting your site. Neither will search engines.
• Flash design breaks the browser back button.
• People who need to increase text size because of bad vision will not be able to do so with text integrated in flash. Use of html allows people to choose larger or smaller text sizes if they so desire.
• Link colors don’t work so you can’t see where you’ve been and which links you’ve yet to visit.
• The Find in Page browser feature won’t work.
• Text translators won’t work.

To counter these problems, when animation is required and actually adds something to a site, we always include descriptors within the flash object tag, title tag, and noscript tag. The web page also will have ample text content including text navigation.

Just say NO to flash intros! (and to flash only sites).

Another revamp and recoding has been uploaded - the site of professional Sunshine Coast photographer, Nikki Bezel. Nikki’s specialties are photography of architecture, real estate and portraiture. He also provides electronic publications and photography for brochures for advertising.

Nikki’s site integrates xhtml and flash to allow search engines to spider the site fluidly.

The site of the Vegan World Network has received a complete makeover and xhtml recoding with streamlined style sheets to enable it to grow unimpeded and successfully. Our client has been able to master the coding used, and is now happily updating the site himself.

Our yearly luxury weekend at the wonderful Ninderry Manor Bed and Breakfast on the Sunshine Coast trumped even last year’s magnificent experience. From the delicious sunset cocktails and artistic hors d’ouvres to the divine Japanese dinner cuisine dreamed up by Aki to the mouth-watering French inspired breakfasts, we and our friends were relaxed and pampered, enjoying the revitalisation of our friendship in the most elegant, inspirational surroundings. Each stylish bedroom has its charm and boasts as part of the fare a selection of bon bons, chocolates and after dinner port.

The Japanese dinner was absolutely heavenly and unforgettable - except for the names of the dishes! Yet incorporated into the superbly presented four course menu were my favourite food fetish - shitake mushrooms, along with scrumptious parcels of asparagus and beef and Aki’s dessert specialty - sesame seed homemade icecream amongst other delectable surprise fantasies. Nowhere else in our experience is food presented so artistically, and the flavours are just unbelievably unique and delicious.

For the final breakfast, Aki presented us with another delight - caramelised fruit - to die for. We’ll be back - as soon as possible!

Thanks to Aki, here’s the complete menu from our special fabulous dinner.

Mixed Japanese Antipasti
-Light Prawn Fritter (Ebi-Shinjo)
-Omelette Roll w/English Spinach and Shimeji Mushrooms
-Smoked Salmon Roll w/Prawn, G-Beans, Carrot and Cucumber
-Scalｌop Teriyaki w/Japanese Lime Pepper Sauce and Japanese Basil

Tuna Tartar Style

Mini Sushi Rolls Variations
-Salmon Raw 　 -Cod Raw
　–Deep Fried Bean Curd (Inari)
-Turnip -Unagi （Eel）

Main Meal
-Rolled Beef Asparagus　 w／Miso Sauce & Seven Flavoured Chilli

Dessert/ Ice-cream
-Green Tea -Boysenberry
-Black Sesame -Sweet Red Bean Paste