Avalon

A definate yes from me. I really like your work with photo manips. The one with the girl that has been stabbed does disturb me a little though.

You are right, not all mothers and fathers are good, neither are all children. There is no question there are some people out there that should not have children, we see it every day in the form of child abuse. Usually these are small children that have no hope of defending themselves which makes it even worse. But I think the majority of parents and children are good, perhaps they don't always understand each other, but they don't physically hurt each other. Yes parents get on your nerves, my parents get on my nerves too. But as I am a parent myself now, I can at least understand what it is they were trying to do. Most times, they were trying to help me avoid the same mistakes they made. Of course like you, I thought I knew what was best for me and my parents didn't have a clue. Even now, I think trying stop a person making mistakes is not always a good thing. To learn things in life, you often have to make your own mistakes, the trick is to learn from the mistakes. The problem is, your parents most likely can see what is going to happen as a result of your mistakes because they have been there themselves, this is why they try to stop you making the mistakes. So my message is, no matter what you think of them, most parents are just doing what they think will be best for you in the long run. Notice I said MOST, not ALL.

There are many similarities and many differences. I don't think it's a case of either country trying to like the other, in fact, I think it's quite the opposite. Both countries proudly proclaim the things they have done and promote their cultures. Sure we watch a lot of American movies and programs, but I think that is mainly because there are so many to choose from. Why are there so many to choose from? I think this mostly due to the much higher population, this I suspect is also why America has so much influence. America is a large country with a large population so therefore the country produces a lot of products. The number of products is more than the country itself can use so therefore they must look overseas for sales and subsequently the influence of American is felt all across the world. Fast food restaurants are a classic example of this, I think you can find a McDonald's almost anywhere in the world.I find it curious that America would buy the company that produces one of our national icons, (Kraft's Vegemite) and then decide it is illegal to sell the product. Now Vegemite will have to be sold on the 'black market', Aussies in American will not be denied their beloved Vegemite!

Actually, you must see it as a punishment, otherwise you wouldn't be complaining about it. Why don't you try something different for a change and ask her if you can help her with something? You might be surprised with her change in attitude towards you. It could be just what she is waiting for you to do. Rather than telling you to help her, maybe she wants you to take the initiative and ask her. It can't hurt.

Ok, I think it's time a parent had the right of reply here. Something you should know, being a parent is a very difficult job, there is no instruction book to tell you what to do, we do what we think is right. Don't forget though, we are human and sometimes make mistakes just like you. I suspect the lecture about the envelope and the reaction of making you walk home from school is more a case of pent up frustration from a number of other seemingly small incidents that have built up. As for stopping you from using the computer, this is just a form of punishment, stopping you from doing something you enjoy. I doesn't necessarily have any to do with the computer corrupting you. Having said that, a LOT of time is wasted on computers, time that should be spent perhaps doing homework or chores. You live in the house, it is not fair that you should help with the chores?Give your parents a break every now and then. Think about things from their side for a change and not always from your point of view. The rules we enforce are generally designed to help prepare you for life where there are rules that must be followed. Like it or not, you CAN'T always do what ever you like, no matter how unfair it seems.

Here's my entry, it's been a while since I entered one of these. Do you think a pumpkin like this might scare the kiddies away from your front door?

Long shutdown times (and startup for that matter) can be due to a large number of startup programs as mentioned above. It annoys the heck out me the number programs that wehen installed are included in the startup of your computer. A lot of the programs don't need to be running in the backgound all time, but it seems the developers like have their program chewing up your precious memory. Some classic examples of this are Quicktime, Realplayer, Acrobat to name but a few. To speed up shutdown and startup times, look for these memory hogs in your startup group and disable/remove them.

Perhaps this is the philosphy that Microsoft operates under. But guess what? The philosphy has been hugely for them. They have been operating like this for years, and it seems to work. I don't know if the bugs they have in their programs are intentional or not, but either way, even with all the bugs their programs are very popular. It must be said that their marketing division must be worth it's gold. How else could such 'sloppy' programming be made acceptable to the general public so that they will part with their hard earned cash to have it?Say what you will, I don't think Microsoft really cares that their products have some huge flaws. People still buy them regardless. I think they must pray to the marketing gods on a daily basis!

First thing I notice about your sigs is the borders, they tend to overwhelm the sig a bit. I suggest using only a 1 pixel border, it still defines the sig but does not make the border too obvious. The other thing that stands out is the lack of blending. It looks like you just slapped a render on a background without any thought as to how to make the render and background work together. The background colouring on the second sig does not match or go with the render at all. It would have been better with a colour similar to the render.All in all, I think both sigs could do with a lot more work. Sorry.

Nice work, I particularly like the lighting used on the render. My suggestions for improvements are:- The area to the left of the render looks too vacant, I would trim the sig down to remove that section.- The smaller text is unreadable, a pixel font would have been a better choice here.- Some emphasis on the larger text (perhaps a 1 pixel outline or drop shadow) would make it more readable.- I think some colour enhancement on the eyes of the render would work well. Make them 'piercing' blue eyes.For a newcomer, it's a great effort! Keep up the good work, practice will only make you better.

Unfortunately I couldn't get the site to load, does it still exist?

I feel sorry for Muslims and followers of Islam. It is apparent Osama and his kind have chosen this religion to try and justify their activities. I have met many Muslims (presumably followers of Islam) that are people just like everyone else, they too are horrified by the activities of terrorists. Unfortunately the acts of a few claiming to be followers of the religion has tainted the reputation of genuine followers. While it is hard not to be suspicious of all Muslims because of this, in most cases the suspicion is not warranted. It is no more warranted than to say that all Christians are murderers based on the activities a few people.And for those that might have preconceived ideas about me and my motives for this post. I live in Australia, I do not follow any religion, but I respect the right of others to follow what ever religion they choose.

I agree with everyone else, the background has to go. It has 2 problems, first it distracts visitors from your content, (usually the whole reason you make a site) and second, because of the gradients it is causing your text to disappear into the background. This problem is evident in both the main section of your page and the menu. Gradients are tricky to use as backgrounds because you have to be very with your text color selection so the text doesn't seem to disappear.The style used for the menu is a good start but it does need a border as SM pointed out. Elements in your page should be clearly defined, a border will help with this. I suggest you search the web for some of the many templates that are available. I don't suggest you use a template as you want the site to be yours, no something that somebody else created. I suggest you look at the templates and use them for ideas, usually by combining different parts of different templates to come up with a combination you are happy with.Good luck with the site design, it's something that often takes a few times to get things exactly the way you want it. Don't grow impatient and settle for something that is not really what you want.

This sounds like it is similar to other format issues we have had in the past and the current ones we have, for example, BETA vs VHS video formats, PC vs Mac formats. Each format, no matter what we are talking about have their benefits and drawbacks. I guess what we need is a format that combines all the good things of each of the formats, not an easy thing to do as each manufacturer/creator is trying to make their particular format #1.With video formats, we are rather fortunate that most modern DVD players will play almost any format, so it doesn't really matter too much which format you use to burn the DVD.As a side issue, I have had problems with using particular brands of blank DVDs with my burner. I have found TDK blanks seem to work OK but Verbatim do not. I thought both were reasonably good quality, but it seems not all blanks are the same. Anyone else had similar problems?

Your life as you knew it is now gone. This is a new phase, that if you want to make it work, will require a lot of effort. I have 3 kids, a 20 year old and twin 16 year olds. It has been a hard road but my wife and I have managed to survive without killing each other or the kids. As jhaslip said, you cannot be self-centred, both your girlfriend and the kids need you, and I mean really need you. Your girlfriend and your kids need to become the center of your universe, everything in your life should revolve around them.Your girlfriend and you will have times where you need to work together and other times where you need time for yourselves, part of the trick is to make sure that the time spent for yourselves is done by agreement with each other. You can't just 'go out with the boys' for example any time you like, you need to do it when it works in with what your girlfriend is doing. And your girlfriend will also need to get away from you and the kids every now and then, again, she will need to make sure it fits in with what you are doing. Also don't forget that both of you need to spend time as a couple together away from the kids, this is what babysitters are for.Whether you like or not, all of you are a family now and it's good idea to do things as a family as much as possible. If you are going out, take the kids with you, sure it's not easy with the amount of stuff you have to take with you, but it does get easier. Doing things as a family will provide you with some of your best memories in years to come.Kids are hard work and can be frustrating, but the good times will outweigh the bad. Try to enjoy the experience.

Mine is http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ It's a fantasy picture gallery, all coded by me. I have used this fast loading, lightweight design for a while now, might be time for an update.

Very nice site, clean and simple with concise content. Navigation works well as do the colors used. Improvements I can suggest are: Enhance your site logo, it looks like it is put there as an afterthought. Be proud of your name and make it stand out. Check your spelling and grammar in your content, I found at least one spelling error on your 'Services' page. There may be others, I didn't go to every page. The "+" used to change color schemes should have something to tell us what it does without having to click on it. rvalkass's problem with the "Latest News" box not lining up is not apparent in Firefox. You done an excellent job with this, you should be proud.

I'm voting for Albusd. The thing I like most about his sig is the perspective of the render, the background could use a little more work, but it's the one that appeals to me the most.

One thing you should keep in mind, particually if you want hosting here. A little quote from the "Xisto Readme". TOPIC CLOSED

It's not about what is legal and what is not. It's about the desire of the forum admin wanting orginal content in his forum. There are a few very good reasons for this. It means you have to work for your hosting credits, and not be awarded them for just copying and pasting. It stops complaints from other people about our members copying their work. How are the moderators to truly know that the work was originally written by the person that posted it? Having the same forum name is no proof. It stops other forums from complaining about our members stealing content from their forum. Quite simply, to earn credits for anything posted here it must not have appeared ANYWHERE before.

Looks like fun, but what a waste of soda! Obviously some people have way too much time on their hands. I wonder what sort of surprise the first person to do this got? I would have liked to have seen it!

Well I have just come from a short trip to South Australia, (4 days). I didn't get to see a lot, but I did go through the wine region and the scenery is quite amazing. Still, I think my favourite place is the west coast of Victoria. Perfect beaches on the coast with rain forests that go right down to the beach. Walking through these forests and finding all the hidden waterfalls is so relaxing, it's hard to believe it's all so close to the beaches. Then of course, there is the jewel of the west coast, The Great Ocean Road. A drive along this magnificently picturesque road is something that will stay in your memory for ever. The only place that I have seen that comes close to this area is the Gold Coast hinterland, close, but not quite as good.

You have a new website? It looks to me very much like a copy of the Xisto forums. Similar topics and descriptions that are clearly copied from here. If you want to start a new forum, make it new, not a copy of someone else's work. Aside from that, it looks pretty much like a standard phpbb forum, not something that will attract visitors. If you want to your forum to grow, you need to make it fresh, new and different to the multitude of other forums out there.

I think the amount a freelance graphic designer gets paid is only limited by what the client is prepared to pay. I know that sounds obvious, but the same for different clients can result in very different pay checks. I have been paid $3,000 for a web site in the past and I know that is much than what the customer was paid as I was only the designer, the guy that made the sale rpobably made just as much if not more. Now this site was not a 5 minute thing, it took about 3 months of drafts, meetings and subsequent changes. Mind you, I had a full time job at the time so this only done in my spare time, it was a nice little source of pocket money.

While Notepad is probably the best thing to use to have total control over your CSS, if you have no idea where to start it can be a bit daunting. When I started using CSS I found a program called "CFi StylePad". It's pretty much a stand-alone WYSIWYG editor for CSS. While it without doubt has it's limitations, I found it a good place to start making CSS pages. From there you can see what the program creates and build on it to suit your needs. You can get StylePad at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ By the way, if you're looking for a good CSS tutorial site, I found this one to be very good. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ There is a lot of information there, but it's worth taking the time to go through it all if you really want to learn. Good luck.