Portsmouth harbour is the main naval base in the UK and as such offers a fantastic variation of naval and pleasure craft. There are many ways to explore the harbour including harbour tour boats, ribs and even by Thames sailing barges. The harbour contains some world class sailing boats, the famous spinnaker tower and is home to many British destroyers and aircraft carriers.

The tour boats are a cheap way of getting around the harbour but they have to stick to a set route. They offer fixed prices per person with reduced rates for children. These trips generally take about an hour and cover the main areas of the harbour.

Another option is to charter a RIB (RIB Charter) – (rigid inflatable boat) for the day. If you take some friends or family this actually works out great value for money and gives you the freedom to chose which parts of the harbour you visit. The Rib can be at your disposal all day and some are capable of over 50mph so you can be anywhere in the Solent in no time. Portsmouth harbour actually has a speed limit of 10 knots so if you hire a Rib and fancy doing some wave jumping and high speed turns you have to venture out of the harbour.

You can also tour the harbour in style on a Thames sailing barge. Thames sailing barges were initially used for carrying cargo up and down the Thames and from 60 to 100ft. Due to there shape, they have huge deck space and large areas beneath deck. As with the Rib you can chose where you visit and you are not restricted to Portsmouth harbour alone. Despite there large size the lack of a keel means that you are not restricted by shallow water which is handy as Portsmouth harbour is very tidal. Most of the sailing barges also have plenty of berths down below so you can even sleep on the boat and continue sailing the next morning.

What ever method you chose to explore the harbour you can almost guarantee a great day out with plenty to see and do. Rib and Thames barge charters give you more freedom and add another angle to the day’s fun but the tour boats offer a very cost effective method of exploring Portsmouth harbour.

Commercial Aerial Photography has many uses and will place a variety of requirements on equipment. The quality and clarity of the image that is demanded can vary greatly. The term ‘Medium Format’ refers to a medium size film format which has traditionally meant larger than 35mm but smaller than 4”x5” sheet film. In the past this has provided the bench mark for most aerial photography and despite the advances in digital cameras it can still provide the benchmark for many photographers.

There are certainly advantages to using medium format and Vertical Photography will usually demand this as clients will often want a high level of detail in order to enlarge areas or strips of an image. However, Progress Photography which will be undertaken to show the continued building or development on a site at a fixed point in time is often used to illustrate the growth of project to stakeholders and does not require the high level of detail. Many companies will actually request smaller files which can be e-mailed between the stakeholders and therefore medium format is not appropriate. Construction Photography however will often require high quality prints and it is often used for display purposes with enlargements on walls of offices.

A commercial Aerial Photographic Library will gain from using medium format although it is advantageous to convert the images to digital format for archiving and instant recall while also retaining the negatives. The reason for this is that a library enquiry will rarely ask for the site/buildings which were originally photographed but there is usually a good chance that a well established library will have completed a site nearby and will have some images with the new subject in. Therefore if the originals are of high quality with maximum detail is may be possible to crop and enlarge the original image to move the new subject into the centre frame.

Over time it is evident that medium format film cameras will be replaced and there are already many ‘full frame’ digital SLR’s on the market which provide a ‘full frame sensor’ and are perceived to provide the detail of medium format film. This is being expatiated by the fact that the medium format film is usually converted into a digital media for processing.

Any operation that is carried out within the Earths atmosphere is subjected to the climate and consequently the weather systems that occur within that region. Aerial Photography can be affected by the weather in two ways, firstly you must be able to get in the air and secondly the photographer must be able to get the images he requires.

It doesn’t matter if the aircraft concerned is a helicopter or a high winged light aircraft. Strong winds or gusts may put the aircraft outside its operating limits and therefore make it unsafe to fly. In the UK this situation is not uncommon but its chances of occurring can be minimised if the aircraft is located at an airfield with many runways in different directions. This allows the pilot to minimise the crosswind component and take advantage of a head wind on takeoff and landing.

Once the aircraft is in the air the weather can pose a whole new range of problems for the photographer. The main problems that may be encountered while undertaking aerial photography and Aerial Event Photography include:

• Low cloud, mist and fog.

This causes the obvious problem of being unable to see the ground and the features which you are trying to photograph. This is likely to cause problems for nearly all forms of aerial photography.

• High cloud, poor light.

This situation is common throughout the UK and although it restricts some aerial photographic operations its affect on others are small. For example Survey Photography undertaken for the purposes of monitoring traffic or pipeline work may be able to operate in these conditions. However, Oblique Aerial Photography undertaken for marketing purposes would probably not be undertaken in these conditions. This is mainly due to the cloud shadows which would make the images unattractive and give a mottled effect.

• Haze, poor horizontal visibility

Haze is one of the biggest problems for Oblique Aerial Photography because it can reduce visibility down to several kilometres when the sky is clear and the weather looks spectacular from the ground.

• High winds.

High winds can make it very difficult to position the aircraft at a site. This is especially true when a specific view is required or while photographing position sensitive sites such as Horse Racing Event Photography. During this form of Event Aerial Photography it is very important not to go over the race course while the horses are out and if the wind requires the aircraft to ‘crap’ along the course it may not be possible to get the shots required.

It is obvious the weather has a major influence on commercial aerial photography and must be monitored closely to take advantages of the right conditions.

There are lots of sites on the Internet, Movie Database, Monster.com, Amazon.com etc who offer ways to search, sort, and view massive amounts of data.

Each of these sites work on a relational database. Since these sites have to handle a tremendous number of hits, they use big, expensive RDBMSes (Relational Database Management System). The names for the RDBMSes they user is familiar to anyone who follows the Nasdaq: Oracle, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, and Informix. These are pretty high end and huge databases. The use of content management systems to allow website owners to maintain their own websites also requires the technology of relational databases.

What is a Database?

In database parlance, the phone book is a table which contains a record for each subscriber. Each subscriber record contains three fields: Name, Address, and Phone number. The records are sorted alphabetically by the name fields, which is called the key fields.

Database Programs:

To create and maintain a computer database, you need a database program, often called a database management system, or DBMS. Just as databases programs, too, range in complexity.

Other database programs, called relational database programs or RDBMS, are designed to handle multi-file databases. FileMaker Pro is a relational database that’s easy to use and fairly inexpensive.

Database program tools:

A database program gives you the tools to:

• Design the structure of your database.
• Create data entry forms so you can get information into the database.
• Validate the data entered and check for inconsistencies.
• Sort and manipulate the data in the database.
• Query the database (that is, ask questions about the data).

Using a database:

If mentions of programming languages make you feel you’re getting out of your depth, don’t worry! Most of the database programs you’re likely to encounter can be used at a variety of levels.  

When you design a website a user must be able to access each and every word of information on your website without much effort. This is the aim when designing the site navigation.

To travel successfully through a site a user must:

• Know where they are
• Have confidence
• Be assured they can easily get back to where they have been

Websites consist of a number of pages connected by multiple hyperlinks. These hyperlinks should be defined and placed where they are easily visible. Mouse over effect not only add flavor to the links but also make sure that the user doesn’t miss them.

Such architecture is referred to as a network, which contains pathways that allow a page to be visited repeatedly from many different locations.

For most design situations, structuring begins with sorting out the distinct categories of information to be included in the site.

When users first arrive on a site they will have no clue as to its size, content or organisation.

Users must know what regions of the site exist and a site map can help provide this.

Successful website design navigation should be possible on the basis of information provided on each page. If a page contains a number of clicks – able regions and several sets of buttons, the user is likely to get confused.

One way to overcome this is to design is such a way, to that the structure is visible to the user and she can easily navigate through the site in a few steps.

The Opening Page:

The opening page can set the tone of the whole publication and introduce users to the site structure and methods of navigation. It’s like the cover of a book, which then draws the user into the site.

The right choice of a site-opening page can depend upon:

• The nature of the site’s information.
• The frequency with which the visitors revisit the site.
• The frequency with which the site’s information changes.

Sites like BBC, Adobe and Macromedia are large web designs visited by tens of thousands of people daily and servicing many repeat customers. They contain a lot of pages, covers a wide range of topics and are update frequently.

Tips for the opening page:

Orient first time users to the site structure by introducing the navigation bar. Alert frequent users to recent additions.

Some sites focus on introducing a firm’s range of professional services. Here the focus is on establishing new clients and not providing a random access service. Such sites have a narrative structure as visitors to the site are looking for an overview of the firm, its history and track record.

The opening screens of such sites must load quickly and allow repeat visitors to skip some of the overview information.

Other sites offer the latest information, and therefore need to be updated frequently.

Going through the web for the last year, there is list of what the biggest web design mistakes can happen.

Some mistakes aren’t actually design mistakes in the classical sense --- ugly graphics, bad navigation, etc. Here is a list of the biggest mistakes made in web design:

• Believing people care about you and your web site.

When someone sees your badly designed site, they are laughing at you. Why? You designed your web site for your needs, not their needs. It gets worse. After they stop laughing, they’re going to go one of your competitors’ sites and buy something there!

• A man from Mars can’t figure out what your web site is about in less than 4 seconds.

You should be able to look at the home page of any site and figure out what the site is about within four seconds. If you can’t your site has failed.

What is this site about? Who knows? Who is going to care enough to stay around and find out?

• Mystical belief in the power of Web Standards, Usability and table less CSS website design.

There is nothing wrong with any of the above except they’re being touted by… guess who?... people who offer web design specialising in… guess what?... Web Standards, Usability, and table less CSS. These are simply tools. Remember, nobody gets excited about the tool used to build a house (“please tell me what brand of hammers you used!”). People get excited about how the house looks and performs.

Web Standards are something that can make your site search engine friendly, reduce bandwidth, etc.

Below are some more common mistakes.

• Improper Navigations

All web navigation must answer the questions:

Navigation must be simple and consistent.

• Too much material on one page

It’s very easy to keep adding material to your home page until it gets out of control. Smaller business sites are especially susceptible because they fear they’ll miss a sale.

With so much content vying for attention it’s initially impossible for the eye to settle on one thing. People get confused and people leave. Pages with lots of disparate material means you have failed to organize your site properly –Probably a combination of not planning your site and poor navigation. Most folks don’t like to scroll at all.

We suggest before designing a new website, please keep above points in mind.

User-centred design is an approach to designing which holds the user at the centre of all design decisions throughout the project lifecycle. It has been argued that user-centred design is more of a philosophy than a set of tools. Whilst this is true to some extent, there are a number of tools that make up the ‘toolkit’, which many refer to as user-centred design. These include: user profiling, user requirements capture and usability testing.

The aim of the user-centred design process is to ensure that the design of a system remains focused upon who will use the system, in what context, and with what aim. Historically it was an approach used to combat design methods that were typically lead by technology, where companies would find ways to use technology to solve a problem and then focus on features and functionality to create a product. Users were an afterthought, so when the product launched its users were expected, and needed, to adapt to the system. The philosophy behind user-centred design proposes that the system should instead adapt to the user.

A user-centred design approach is typically used when a project’s success is dependent upon increased usage and improving conversion rates. Many high profile websites use the approach to ensure design and development teams remain focused upon the key users they must design for. Throughout the project user-centred design tools, such as usability testing, are employed to ensure the project is delivering value to the end users. When the product launches the project team and stakeholders are confident of its success as they have been in regular contact with users, and have refined their thinking to ensure users will benefit from the product.

Advantages of User Centred Design

There are many advantages for adopting a user-centred design approach: The project team unites behind a common goal (by really understanding why they are designing); the risk of project failure is mitigated as concepts and ideas are validated with users throughout the project; the project team narrows its focus onto a smaller number of key features that are specific to the user needs.

Disadvantage of User Centred Design

As mentioned earlier, user-centred design can be seen as a philosophy as well as a set of tools, and can be difficult to integrate into an existing processes. Therefore, gaining buy-in from management to adopt a user-centred process can be a challenge. In order to work properly, the user-centred process requires buy-in and involvement from the entire project team, and requires a change agent to get it started. In our experience, once the ball is rolling, the project team is always appreciative of the new process.

In summary then, a user-centred design process is an essential tool for projects reliant upon user adoption for success. When a project team is united in serving the needs of their users, they often find that they develop a far better solution as they are focused on a clear direction throughout the project lifecycle. The challenge with the approach is to get the whole project team to buy-in to the new process together.

A threatened BA pilots strike is still on the cards for this Easter with 86% of the carrier’s pilots voting in favour for some form of industrial action. One can only hope that common sense will prevail but it is now a regular feature in our every day lives that staff with a grievance will target the busy holiday periods to put pressure on their employers. And it is not just the airlines who are at risk. Airports authorities are also vulnerable to strikes and stoppages. Whether this industrial action is justified or not, it will be the traveller who suffers and long queues at check-in desks are now becoming the norm and not the exception. Add to that other occurrences, such as the recent computer failure in the baggage handling system at Heathrow Terminal 4, the attempted terrorist attack at Glasgow airport in 2007 and the heightened security alert at Heathrow in the summer of 2006, it is now common place for our travel plans to be disrupted by events outside our control.

Whilst we cannot totally avoid being affected, apart from electing never to travel of course, we can limit the financial loss by taking out adequate travel insurance which will provide financial cover and compensation if caught up in airport holiday chaos. To start with, all travel insurance policies should have a travel delay section, generally to pay a fixed amount for each 6, 12 or 24 hours delay experienced. This is what is termed as a benefit so does not require receipts to claim but you will need a note from the carrier or airport to confirm the number of hours delayed. Secondly, most travel insurance policies will have a section for Abandonment. This is just another term for cancellation which permits the traveller, once they have experienced the required number of hours travel delay, to cancel their flight and holiday in its entirety and claim back the costs. Whether you choose this option will depend on many factors, such as the length of your trip away, how long the delay will be and personal preference but it is a very valuable addition to have in any travel insurance policy. One word of warning, all travel insurance policies will have a clause that excludes any claim from being paid if the strike had been known about before the flight and holiday had been booked so it always prudent to check before you go firm on any travel plans.
With travel insurance now very competitively priced, particularly when purchased over the internet, who can really afford to travel without any cover at all? It is probably a risk not worth taking when faced by the threat of yet another year of strikes, stoppages and delays.

Want to swim with dolphins? No problem, but want to do the same with sharks, even from inside a cage, then that’s a ‘whole new kettle of fish’, no pun intended! We do want you to have a ‘whale of a time,’ there he goes again, but it all boils down to the small print in the policy. Want to make sure? Then dive straight into the Hazardous Activities section first, and not the ocean, and all should be revealed or not as the case may be. Many of us assume that we are covered for that one-off opportunity that always presents itself when we are on holiday. Perhaps it’s because we are feeling relaxed and taken in by the smooth patter of the ‘Holiday Rep’ and sign up for the night time ‘toboggan run’ or once in a life time ‘bungee jump’ but how many of us think “does my travel insurance cover this?”

Most travel insurance policies will have a list of sports and hazardous activities that are included as standard and even offer, with the payment of an additional premium, cover for activities at the more extreme end of the sporting spectrum. But it does pay to look closely at the small print in your policy as this is an area where, buying cheap travel insurance, if we stick with the fish theme again, will definitely bite you if you ‘shrimp’ on the cover. Having an accident can be very costly, after the event, and your travel insurance will definitely not cover you if the activity you have chosen to do is not on the approved list.

Your travel insurance policy is there to pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong, and not just in a figurative sense. Surgeons can do marvellous things these days with body parts that have become detached, even as a result of shark diving, but it will definitely cost an ‘arm and a leg’ if you don’t have the travel insurance cover in the first place!

With Easter now behind us, we can look forward to the summer ahead. Well almost, but with Easter being the earliest on record, well since 1913, you can understand why some people are confused because many schools don’t actually break up for the Easter break until April, a good two weeks after Easter itself. Whilst this disconnect is a fairly rare occurrence, what it does do is extend the spring holiday season to a good four weeks which has resulted in a much more even spread of people taking short breaks and family holidays, at home and abroad. This is good news for tour operators, hoteliers and the carriers and, with the ideal combination of abundant snow in the Alps and North America and spring sunshine on the Costas, it has never been a better time to seek out a last minute good deal.

The same good deal can be said about travel insurance and it is always worth shopping around. The traditional way of buying through a travel agent is the most expensive and on the way out as new legislation to guard against dubious and selling comes into force. It will still be possible to use this route in the future but it is unlikely to bring down the cost of travel insurance to what can now be found through the internet. Type in travel insurance in any search engine on the internet and you will find, literally, millions of sites wanting to sell you travel insurance. Narrow your search by typing in Cheap, Family or Winter Sports Travel Insurance and you should be able to find a policy that both suits your needs but does not break the bank either. Let’s face it, we all know we need travel insurance but don’t want to pay through the nose to get it. The golden rule is do check the small print before you buy, as generally, there will be less cover, the cheaper the policy though not always. Medical expenses and cancellation cover are crucial areas which apply to all policies but some providers offer reduced cover for a lesser premium. And if you are going on a Winter Sports holiday, do make sure that you have this activity covered in the travel insurance policy you buy. Many high street banks offer free travel insurance if you hold a premium account but restrictions do still apply and it is quite possible that extra activities, such as Winter Sports, will only be added to these policies for an extra premium. You can be caught out thinking that you are covered when you are not.