The perfect general purpose lens must be the SMC Pentax-DA 16-45mm f4. Superb quality, constant f stop, price much lower than it was.

It comes complete with a dedicated bayonet fit lens hood and I use it 95% of the time.

That's a good starter set for your kit. Personally I wouldn't bother with the filter for lens protection, but that's a moot point.

You will have the potential to produce some very fine images with the items you have chosen.

Taking the second point, this has been covered extensively in the lens section, and the conclusion is that the 16-45mm is a very superior beast.

It will out-perform your 18-55mm significantly, but only if you are making large prints or files for publication will you see the difference.

Yes, there's little point in having all the extra speed of broadband and then frittering it away waiting for silly animations to load.

Simple websites that get to the point and take me quickly to the information I want are the order of the day.

There is one site I would love to visit on a regular basis, but it takes so long to load and life is too short.....

It seems that Opera is written in a way that means it ignores the instruction to keep the tables to the left.

A friend has written some code for me that is expected to cure this problem and I will hopefully become Opera-friendly in the near future.

I wouldn't want to exclude anyone!

I'm cureently looking into the Opera issues for my own site, but if you have such problems with it why not try Firefox 2?

Dreamweaver 8

We tested in IE and Firefox and it was OK. We'll have to look into Opera, thanks for the info.

My new website is now up and running at www.johnriley1uk.org where you will be most welcome to visit and join in the forum if you wish.

It largely directs people to areas I am interested in, so, for example, there's no point in me putting up a huge gallery of photographs when there are hundreds on my ePHOTOzine page.

All feedback is invited.

The first picture looks very uncomfortable because of the odd shape to the arm and the eyes have been overdone so they look quite scary...

The second I think looking at the model from the front would have been more interesting, but the idea is sound.

The third is the best and is very nice. It's a comfortable and unusual pose and she looks good. The eyes are still over-done but that could easily be corrected.

Practice and practice and some really good results will follow.

Hope that helps!