chris monkey

If this is your first attempt at a website then it isn't that bad. That is to say it isn't good either ... Do yourself a favour and your potential users .. lose the animated gifs ... They bothered me after about 3 seconds ... The background will also make usability and readability worse. Just keep it simple ... and tasteful.... Go to Jacob Nielsen’s website ... http://www.useit.com/ you can learn a lot from this man ... Try to keep the colours pleasing to the eye so they don't induce an epileptic fit. I make no apologies if you think I am ripping your hard work to bits ... I am ... you asked! Just take it as constructive as it is supposed to be. Another tip for you that will put you way ahead of the field. Learn to hand code. Once you have learnt to hand code you will then know exactly what you are doing and actually understand what these WYSIWYG programs are doing for you instead of just pressing a button. This will then in turn increase your design skills and you will not be constrained by a program … your creativity will improve because you will know what you can do … Good luck. Chris

It may well be worth contacting The British Standards Institution. I am sure someone there would be able to help you. Their contact details are as follows: Telephone: 0208 996 9000 Email: cservices@bsi-global.com

I still have my original one ... They can be a pain in the rain .... Hate the noise .. used to frighten the life out of me .... I would stick with your microns.

Hi James ... I believe that the rods range from around £140.00 - £160.00. You can get them mail order and if you shop around you should get a good deal. Harrisons themeselves are fantastic and you can customise your rods if you wish. They may be a little out of your price bracket but well worth a bit extra.

Hi James. Monster Crabs has hit the nail on the head. Rods are very personal and it is always good to try before you buy, especially with the cost of some of them. Shame you can't, however such is life. I personally don't rate fox rods. I feel that they are overpriced for what you get. Greys produce excellent rods but again it is down to personal preference. Another manufacturer I would recommend would be Harrison ..... Absolutely quality rods. I still use my old ballistas and they are fantastic rods. Happy rod hunting.

see the one my mate is selling in the for sale section ... there is a contact number to ring if you are interested ... £100.00 worth for £50 ... can't be bad ... If you aren't interested in that then I can get you a fox warrior pod (never used) for £45.00 and you pay postage. cheers

This is a message for Gunner or anyone else interested in the pod ... Like I said it isn't my pod but you can contact the Guy who wants to sell it on this # 01444456171 Just ask for Andy Witten. The pod is still up for sale as well as the other kit that goes with it as far as I am aware ... Thanks for the emails and the replies ...

To Chezman, Obviously you are entitled to your own opinion as am I. I will make comments as I see fit. Just because you are unfortunate enough to work for the postal service it's not my fault mate ... Watch out for strange dogs

Hi Dave ... can't send you any email as it just gets bounced. so here is what I would have sent you via email ... > Hi Dave .... I sent the cheque off .... Just typical of the bloody postal > service .... Give it another day mate and if it still hasn't turned up I > will write you another cheque .... > > Don't you dare let those scales go !!! ... cheers for letting me know .... > > Chris

James .. http://bivvyboyz.homestead.com/How2pva.html All the information that you require.

Hi Steve. Apologies for not posting sooner but I have been rather busy. I Have had a look throughout the whole of your website and I must congratulate you on the content. The content is very appealing and interesting … I certainly learnt from it. Well done. One important thing regarding content is that it should change on a regular basis, be updated and the end user should be aware that the content has changed. I would suggest links on the homepage to reflect this with new content that has been added. This will keep users coming back to your site on a regular basis. The site itself should be designed for a screen resolution of 800 * 600 so as long as it renders correctly within that resolution everything should be fine. All images should be optimised to reduce the download time for the users who have modem connections. You will be amazed at how low you can get image file sizes without ruining the quality of the image. All photographic images should be saved as JPEG images and you will have to mess around with the quality settings to reduce the file size accordingly. OK …. From a design point of view. Aesthetically speaking there is room for improvement. My intention here is not to upset you but give you pointers from a design perspective. I would suggest using different colours that compliment each other … most colours that compliment each other are opposites on the colour wheel. When you begin the design of your Web site, one of the first things you need to do is decide on a colour scheme. Although choosing colours seems like a relatively easy proposition, it's not easy at all. In fact, it's hard. It is extremely important to pick hues that complement each other. You will want to use a background colour that contrasts well with the colour of your text. People are used to reading black text on a white background. I keep this fact in mind when I design my clients' Web sites. Although I have never always stuck with the black and white colour scheme, I try to use a dark font on a light background. It makes for easier reading and a more pleasant experience for my visitors. Steve. You need to look into the colours used in the site, although not displeasing to the eye. There is definitely room for improvement here. I can see from the site that you are using frames. This is not good. Don’t use frames. I can see why you used frames, but there are very important considerations on why not to use them. The use of frames can cause a variety of technical problems for users not exhaustively, this includes: 1.Difficulties in bookmarking pages within frames. Bookmarking a frameset will result in a link to the initial frameset configuration, so as soon as the frameset changes "state" there is no direct way to remember the new frameset state. 2.Use in new devices such as PDAs, which have no support for framesets at all. 3. Site indexing problems by automated agents (search engine spiders, etc). 4. Problems for screen reader software, where making sense of the page is virtually impossible and navigation contained in a separate frame is not useable. 5. Problems with printing out a frameset page. 6. In the light of this, the use of frames is normally discouraged. However, if you do want to proceed with a frames-based design, I would suggest the following: It is essential to provide a non-frame alternative to the interface to allow non-frame-capable browsers to function equivalently. The NOFRAMES tag must be used alongside the FRAMESET tag. Where significant site material is displayed within a framed page, a means is provided to allow the user to link directly to pages within the frameset. In other words, a work-around must be provided to the linking problem associated with framesets. That you undertake to maintain awareness of developments in CSS technology which are likely to provide new and better methods of creating this kind of interface using stylesheets. Ensure that your HTML documents are correctly identified with the corresponding DTD for the page. Framesets are defined by a different DTD and this should be correctly stated on the page, both for code validation and to allow clients to correctly render the page. example: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Frameset//EN"> http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-1999...ameset.dtd"> Basically Steve .. Get rid of the frameset and use tables to lay out your content …. But you could follow the guidelines above if you really think you want to keep them. The menu system colours do not work, especially on the rollover effect. They are not good on the ol eyes at all and the rollover effect is wasted. I would suggest changing them completely. Also you need to define the structure of your website. This is a paramount issue that needs to be given careful consideration. Once you have the structure of the site sorted you can define the sublinks etc for the various sections …. The menu needs to be divided up into sections and sub links for the various sections … The Menu is much to long … make it more concise and structured. I could go on for longer mate but time is of the essence. I would say you have done a good job considering you put the site together from learning everything yourself. You should be congratulated. If you want a hand to build a better site just let me know and I will put one together for you, time allowing of course, don’t worry about the money I don’t expect any … Just helping out. All the best.

Hi Steve ... I am a web designer. I do it all day everyday for my living. I will be glad to give you my opinion of the site and ways of improving it. I will also give you constructive criticism. Just let me know if you would like me to add my comments .... Chris

Hi Slayer, I had used a Hutchinson apothesis (sp) 2 man bivvy for around 7 years ... Absolute nightmare to put up but it has served me very well and for really long sessions it does me fine. For overnight sessions I use a standard wavelock brolly with a overwrap ... believe it or not the overwrap is from badger !! I have found it really good and extremely waterproof. Also it takes no time at all to set up. I have recently bought a new bivvy for all my weekend sessions (Fox euro easy dome 1 man). In my opinion this is a fantasic bivvy. Goes up in 3 mins and you can even put all your kit in it while you peg it down etc (which is nice) I did have a gardner pop up bivvy, that should be dedicated to the worst fishing buy I have ever bought.

Hi ... I always make my own rigs. If you have just started carp fishing then some of the ready bought rigs are ok. I would recommend you start making your own rigs as soon as you feel confident enough. It is very satisfying catching carp with your own rigs and a great way to experiment with different variations.

Hi Jack ... I have used them and still do. I haven't had any problems at all with the esp raptor hooks. In my opinion they are a quality hook.