Valerie Cowan's Web World

A TRAVEL website for people with disabilities has secured support from some of the biggest web services.

Jonathan Kaye, owner and operator of Everybody's Hotel Directory, has seen traffic at the site soar to a monthly average of 20,000 page views, thanks to direct links by the likes of MSN, AOL, and CompuServe.

New features have recently been added to keep users coming back.

At the core of the site is a directory of hotels and guest houses that offer facilities for disabled people.

Now a new section, Your Experiences, has been added and Kaye hopes visitors will contribute their own opinions and travel anecdotes.

Another new addition to the site is a list of disability-conscious cybercafes.

And there are links to some other excellent sites aimed at the disabled traveller. "Things have been going really well in terms of traffic and creating links from other sites," says Kaye.

The success of the site has also allowed him to invest in HTML editing software - the first version of it was built entirely with Windows Notepad.

Travellers with disabilities might also find it useful to visit the excellent Lonely Planet travel website.

A page has recently been added to its Thorn Tree message board specifically for those with disabilities.

I've used other Thorn Tree pages to ask for information about destinations and activities abroad and other online users have always come up with the details I needed, so the system does work. There's only a handful of messages on the disabled travellers' page as yet but it's sure to grow over the coming months as more people become aware of it.

http://www.everybody.co.uk

http://www.lonelyplanet.com

Wish you were here...

EVEN if you've only made it as far as Blackpool this summer, you can pretend you've been to Thailand by sending a virtual postcard via the web.

Choose from a large selection of images - and don't forget to mention that you were sitting in an internet caf in Bangkok when you send your chosen card.

http://www.thaipostcard.com

Doctor's orders...

DOCTOR Marten shoes and boots are something of a design classic.

Around 40,000 pairs are produced every day - that's about 10million pairs a year. The official DM website is packed with interesting facts about the product.

http://www.drmartens.com

Bowie exclusive

ANYONE desperate to get their hands on David Bowie's new album, "hours..." can download it from the web from TuesdayBowie, a long time pioneer of web technology, has joined forces with Virgin for the online release. The album will have 10 tracks, but anyone buying it via the web will get an exclusive 11th.

How it will work is explained at Bowie's own website, http://www.davidbowie.com.

Marlo get it together

ANYONE remember Marlo?

They are the band from Stoke-on-Trent which won the BBC's Get Your Act Together talent show, hosted by Ronan Keating.

They sensibly changed their name from Mirage to Marlo during their heat and went on to win the final. Their official website isn't great, and has the tendency to make the lads sound like a company rather than a group of budding pop stars.

The site opens with the words: "Official Website of the Marlo Group", which you half-expect to be followed by "Experts in construction and cement" or something similar.

Still, if you enjoyed the lads' TV appearances, you can find out where they're playing near you from the site, and download MP3 files of their songs.

http://www.tokolosh.co.uk/marloband

DON'T forget - everything you need to know about East Lancashire can be found on our own website at http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.