Don Kelly's Ozello Shrimper | Recreational Shrimping Equipment and Information

The Ozello Shrimper Forum is designed to provide you the ability to read and share stories and reports about your adventures shrimping. As you can imagine, predicting when shrimp are running is possible but not a perfect science. So, make it a point to come to the forum to share your results shrimping with others and read how others did. By doing so, you can learn from others successes and share your own. Even if you log on to say "It was a horrible night, the tide was high and there was nothing", you have provided a valuable report to the others on the forum. Of course, we always love to hear about your successes and the good times you have too. Feel free to use the forum as a social gathering place wth others who enjoy shrimping. You might find a new buddy or spot in the process.

Forums

There are multiple forums on the Ozello Shrimper Shimpers Forum. Within each forum are lists of topics. Some forums are restricted, such as the announcements forum. Only the administrator can start topics in that forum. Most forums are not and anyone can start a topic in the forum.

Within the topic, there are multiple posts. A post is a public message from a single user. A post can contain text, images, video or sound. Usually it just contains text.

Here is what a forum looks like:

Announcements

The announcements section sits at the top of the main forum page. It is where the forum administraor communicates with forum members about forum related topics. Look there to read past articles from the administrator, information about past or future downtime and any other information the forum administrator thinks is important.

Geographic Layout

Our site focuses primarily on Florida. So, we have divided our forums and Florida into several regions to make it easier for shrimpers to find each other. Clicking one of the rows in the main body of the forum will take you to the forum for the described area.

Central West focuses on Citrus, Hernando, Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Sarasota and Manatee Counties

Southwest focuses on Charlotte, Lee, and Collier Counties

Northwest focuses on Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Gulf and Franklin Counties

North Central focuses on Wakulla, Jefferson, Taylor, Dixie and Levy Counties

Southeast focuses on Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties

Central East focuses on Volusia, Brevard, Indian River and St. Lucie Counties

Northeast focuses on Nassau, Duval, St. John's and Flagler Counties

Don't see your county in this list? That's because we only show coastal counties. There are no places t shrimp in the middle of Florida. When you use the forum, join the one closest to the area you want to go shrimping!

Some forums are busier than others. Central West is extremely busy because this is where the Ozello Shrimper is used the most. Our friends on the East Coast use different methods and different sites on the internet cater specifically to them. This forum will always be open to anyone who wants to use it to discuss recreational shrimping.

Symbols

The forum is designed for rapid digesting. When you visit the site, you don't want to have to dig through pages of text only to find that nothing new has happened. This is where symbols come in. Symbols tell you if new messages have occured and if so, where. A legend describing each of these symbols can be found at the bottom of each forum. It looks like this:

Next to these symbols you may find some other symbols that look like question marks, life rings, or characters. These are defined by the person who created the thread and may indicate the content of the message. They are simpy visual aids that may express frustration, a question, or comedy.

In the right column of the forum you can see who last posted a message about the topic. If you just want to skip to their comments, you can click the little green arrow pointing to the right. It will skip ahead of everyone else's messages and get you to what you want to read quickly.

Who is Online

At the bottom of the forum is a box called "who is online." It will list the screen names of anyone who is viewing the same forum as you are at that moment as long as they have indicated that they wish to be seen in their user control panel. Their names will appear along the bottom of this list, color coded depending on what type of group they belong to.

Topics

A topic is a row within the forum, a new subject to discuss, a different subject for consideration, a new shrimping report, a question, a reference, you name it. To start a topic, click the New Topic button in the upper left hand side of the Forum screen. When you do, you will see this screen:

This screen permits you to draft a message, change the colors of the text, insert emoticons (smiley faces, etc), attach files, or poll the audience using the poll feature. You can also insert additonal media directly into the body of your messae.

The required areas are the subject and the text. The rest is optional. When you have completed your message, click Submit. It will now go on to join the list of new topics in the forum. Here is an example:

As you can see, Bruno Boys posted a topic and he received a reply!

This screen show you what your message will look like after you have submitted it. If you have specified an avatar, it will appear in the left hand column. If you have specified a signature, it will appear beneath you message.

Beneath the message are buttons that enable you to contact the person who posted it using thei preferred contact methods. Usually these include private message (PM) or email. You can also view their profile.

If you wish to reply to the topic, click the Post Reply button at the bottom.

Tools

There are several tools available to you on the topic page. At the top of each post are small icons permitting you to do things. You can click the Quote button to use a persons text in your new message complete with nicely crafted quote texts. You can also edit your past messages if you made a mistake or typo.

User Control Panel

Above the announcements section is the heading for the forum. It s more than a colorful banner. It provides access to your user controls and personalized menus.

Within this section you can quickly access the most active topics, unanswered posts, new posts or posts made by you with a singe clc. You can also see information about the current time and see where you are relative to the main forum page using a "breadcrumb" so that you can find your way back to the top of the site.

The links located in the green banner provide access to some of our members only function including a user control pane, private message system and a list of current members by their username.

Clicking User Control Panel takes you to a personal menu where you can perform a wide range of actions. Let's click it to see what we find.

Overview Menu

The initial overview menu that you see when you first visit this page allows you to manage the forums you are subscribed to (if any), manage your bookmarks (favorite posts or forums), manage draft messages you have created but not sent, or manage attachments such as photos, documents or files that you included in past messages.

In the center of the screen is a list of important announcements as well as a summary of your recent activity on the forum. In the lower right hand corner are the screen names of your friends who are either online or offline at the present moment. You can manage this list using a feature we will describe shortly.

Profile

The initil screen of the profile menu allows you to update what other people see about you whe they click your profile on the forum. You can provide as little or as much factual or imaginary infomation about yourself as you deem fit.

Signature

The signature seems to be one of the places that most people express their creativity. You too can modify the style and display of your signature by clicknig Edit Signature in the Profle Menu on the left hand side of the screen. You will see a screen similar to this one if you do.

On this screen you can choose what will appear at the end of each of your messages on the forum. The colorful rainbow at the bottom of the screen is a pallete for you to choose the colors for the text you would like to use. You can also choose to incorporate other elements in your signature such as images, flash video, video, animations or other stylish personalizations. Please be considerate of others screen space and sensibilities when choosing your signature. If you own a business, you are more ta welcome to link to it and provide an attractive image for your link.

Avatar

Another personalized effect that you can modify from this area is your avatar. Avatar is a geeky way of saying profile picture. It can be anything tht you want, provided it fits in the size limited box. If you don't know the size, the system will tell you when you have gone over.

You can choose to use an image from the library of images we have ade available by clicking Display Gallery or you can upload your own photo. If you have an avatar located at another sie, you can put the address of that image into the Link off-site field and we will use it whenever we display your image.

This avatar is an important symbol of your identity on the forum but also on the left navigation menu of our site. Once you have configured it properly, it will apear each tme you log into the Ozello Shrimper website.

Preferences

This forum has a lot of preferences that you can modify. Preferences are your way of crafting how you want to get information from the forum. Do you want it to email you? Do you want to allow other users to contact you? Do you want to be "invisible" when you are reading the forum? These are all options. Rather than describe each and every possibility, we have simply included screen shots of the options. They are fairly self explanatory.

As you can see, there are a lot of functionalities that you can choose to enable or disable. The default behavior of the forum is to not email you anything and to allow other users to contact you through private messages. The rest of the features here are up to your personal.... preference.

Private Messages

Private messages are messages sent directly from one member to another instead of being posted on the forum. If you have something you want to share only with one person, want to ask a person a specific question unrelated to any topic or are generaly just a secretive person, you can utilize the private message functionality.

Private messages are as flexible as normal message board posts. You can add emoticons (little smiley faces and graphics to express emotion), attach documents or photos, and even make you message more colorful by using the color palettes provided. If you become more advanced, you can learn how to embed media in the message like YouTube videos, Google Maps, or Flash.

Writing a private message is simple. It's just like writing an email. Type what you want to say in the big box, select who you want to send it to from our list of members and click "Submit." If you aren't sure how everything is going to come out, click Preview to see before you send it.

The menus beneath the Private Message heading allow you to manage you messages. You have an inbox, outbox, sent messages and drafts folder, just like in most email programs. You can even configure rules to put special messages into specific folders automatically.

Usergroups

Usergroups are exactly what they sound like - groups of users. These groups are created by the moderator and members are placed inside of the groups. Some groups can be subscribed to by members, others require permission to join. Ozello Shrimper uses usergroups to identify members of our tournaments and our forum staff, among other things.

If you have been given permission to join or leave groups, you can do so using the manage groups link on the left hand side of the screen.

Friends

Friends are people or profiles on Ozello Shrimper's forum that you like to keep in touch with or keep track of. They are people who stand out from the rest of the crowd and when they are online, you would like to know. Add a friend or "foe" (a person you would prefer not to interact with) to your lists so you can be aware of when they are online.