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Everything you always wanted to know about France - from France |
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Voila - From France here is Newsletter Number 120 Montblanc, Languedoc February 25 2006 == Salut After the longest break in this newsletter since I started writing it in 1999, I am delighted to be back with news about France. Why I have been so silent - Eight years ago I had a dream, to create a vacation property rentals website which would be the best in the world. I wanted to do this because we had invested everything we had into a medieval ruin in the South of France to make a family home and two apartments which we could rent to vacationers, this was in a little village called Nizas. At that time, 1996, this was pioneering stuff both for using the Internet for marketing and for investing in French property for a better quality of life than we had in the UK... To read more please go to... http://nizas.com/newsletters/feb06/letter.html If you have dealt with my site at RentalsFrance and have not heard from me this week, then please read this open letter as it has some important information for you. ======= While I have been waiting for the website problems to get sorted out, I decided last week to do some work on one of my first websites http://Nizas.com I got carried away a bit and found myself working most ofthe night and all of the day, just like I started with this website over 10 years ago - it has been fascinating to see how little has really changed in site development, there are some improved scripts and tools and the disciplines give more flexibity and control, but basically it much like writing with a fountain pen instead of a quill pen. Developments like wiki and RSS will, I believe, make a difference, but I see these as just a small step towards something much more useful. Sites like http://petrolprices.com/ sites like PetrolPrices.com and free software such as http://www.PricePirates.com give useful services. Weblogs and syndication has expanded direct, distributed communication to a fantastic degree. Probably the next ten years will reveal more of the way the Internet will be of value to most people. What I have ended up with after five days of coffee and keyboards is a simple little website which has a lot of information and shares our own experience of 16 years living in France. Please do visit it, there are search tools you can use, a new classifieds section, forums and all the usual things you would expect. The idea is to also give my advertisers on other sites somewhere they can display their vacation rentals and other services while we get the sites mended. http://Nizas.com It is all new and you could be the first person to make a post or put on an advert, but please do visit the site and let me know you are still there ======= PricePirates ebay is an amazing service, but it is huge and can take even an experienced person a long time to be sure they are looking at the best site, under the best classification and service to find the best deals. We found a piece of very effective - free - software http://www.pricepirates.com/ which does all the searching for you, not only with ebay, but also Amazon, Shopping.com and other leading bargain sites. The download is safe and simple. - Highly recommended ======= Finding the right pages on ebay PricePirates is a useful piece of software, but you still can miss the classification you need for the best deal if you search by keywords. You can drill down through ebay, but covering all their sites and sections in different languages is a big job. I have started to research the relevant classifications for specific auctions and have put the first links to this service on the site at http://nizas.com/special_offers/ This uses software I get from ebay so you can go directly to pages for a product or service - I have started with vacation rentals in France because this is something I understand, but I can do this for any subject - let me know what interests you and I can put on links for these. ======= Red Red Wine It seems red wine really is good for you, recent research has established that some fish have extended their life expectancy by 60% afer injections of a chemical found in red wine - the problem is that I would have to drink over 80 bottles a day to have a chance of living to 115 years old. ======= After next week, when I will have sorted out all the wrinkles, I will be writing regularly, offering help where I can and use the websites to give a service. All this is supported by the advertising on the site, there are no fees or charges and I will try to reply to all mail. Contact me through the website from http://nizas.com/contact/index.html Or simply reply to this email. Bonne Chance Tony There are over 2,000 features and articles on this site about French life and living in France. You can search from the search box above. Do browse through our website and please use the advertising links, they help pay for the site. I do try to reply to all mail - Contact Me - most is about property or living in France. I publish comments in this newsletter which I believe are of interest and may help find answers for people wanting to come to France. I hope readers will go to the adverts which help support our overheads. |
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