Age - How old are you?
52
How long have you had your site?
January 2002.
How many pets do you have?
Umm... let me see...
30 guinea pigs
1 basset hound
3 cats
2 rabbits
..and a hamster
What type of pets do you have and what are their names?
The basset is called Bilbo and has a website of his own.
The cats are Frankie, Pumpkin and Pickle
There are stories and names for the guinea pigs on the Comfy Cavies website.
Hobbies - What do you like to do, besides keep this site?
Cooking to entertain, trivia quizzes, playing guitar and mandolin.
Pets hobbies - What do your pets like to do?
The guinea pigs do the usual guinea pig stuff... they eat, they run
around, and given the chance they like making baby guinea pigs!
Location - Where are you from? Where are you now?
North London, England
Wanted to do something nice for my girlfriend (now my wife). We'd had an argument and to make up I started building a website about her guinea pigs.
WHY do you write a site about your pets?
Its a nice way for the two of us to bring our hobbies together -
she likes guinea pigs and I like building websites.
All aspects of caring and looking after guinea pigs as pets. Our forum takes things a step further - we talk about anything that interests us... music, movies, books etc.
Do you and/or others in your family communicate with readers of your site?
Yes indeed! We have a very active forum and have made some
good internet friends from around the world.
How much email feedback to you receive from your site? Is it mainly positive or negative?
We receive on average about 7 emails each week from people
wanting help and advice about petcare. Its always nice when someone writes just to
tell us how much they've enjoyed the site or how it's helped them. There has been
very, very little negative feedback over the past four years.
We've met up with a number of our forum regulars at guinea pig shows in England. In fact, one couple from Birmingham have become our closest friends and we visit each other regularly.
Has your motivation changed over time?
When the site was first created, it was mainly to advertise our
holiday boarding service for guinea pigs but it quickly grew to cover much wider
topics.
Do your friends and family know you keep this site/read it? If so have you had any really negative experiences as a result? If not why?
My family probably think its silly to have a website about
guinea pigs - so what?
HOW has your Web site benefited you? Your friends? Or total strangers?
Hopefully, our visitors benefit from the site as much as we do. I
know that some of our Forum members have struck up friendships - and if we've
acheived nothing more than putting friends together then its all worthwhile.
A website is a living thing, constantly changing, being updated, improved and added to. No website should ever be considered as finished - so I guess pages announcing "Under Construction" should be banished. Start over and change? I am - all the time!
What are your favorite things on your site?
I really enjoy the Message Forum - chatting with people from
all over the world who have a common hobby and interest is what the internet is best
for!
I've enjoyed building all of the pages on Comfy Cavies... and its helped me to learn more about our pets too! For example -
The fun stuff is good too... playing around with pictures for a laugh -
We also have some original guinea pig cartoons and clipart - we realised early on that there is a serious shortage of guinea pig clipart on the internet!
What do you look for in an pet Web site, as a viewer?
Its got to be easy on the eye and easy to read. No shocking,
vivid colours or "busy" backgrounds. Not too many animations on one page... and not
just a page full of text either. Pictures are nice.
Links need regular checking too - theres nothing more annoying than a dead link.
Another of my pet hates is being forced to listen to music or sound when I visit a site... the option to hear audio should be given as a choice to the visitor. I often surf the net whilst listening to a CD on my PC so enforced sound really bugs me!
What is "one word" that would describe your site?
Fluffy
How do you tackle the mechanics of Web design and how do you deal with your frustrations when you can't do what you envision.
I read magazines on webdesign and visit websites that have
tutorials or bits of code that I can use. I use Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and a few
other bits of software (eg. Photoshop, Xara Menu Maker) - I'm used to them now and
know enough to do a decent job (I think) - and I'm always learning more!
Why do you think people are interested in your pets and what they do?
I have absolutley no idea - I'm just happy that they are!
What compels you to design beautiful pages and to write from the heart (beyond just the usual question of "why do you write a Web site")?
Well - someone has to do it don't they? (falls off chair laughing).
