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This message is being forwarded (by Dan Victor) because the original
sender has been excluded from Tweeters. Please copy the email address
below with any responses.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 06:18:43 -0700
To: obol at mail.orst.edu, tweeters at u.washington.edu
From: Don Baccus <dhogaza at pacifier.com>

Since I'm leaving to Boston this morning for a couple
of weeks, helping a friend move, thought I'd give a
short update.

About seventy people have registered with the site
in the fifteen or so days since I announced it here.
Most have checked out the rare bird alert service,
some have poked around the larger general database.

Folks have been adding census-like and simple checklist
(presence/absence) counts to the project at a steady
pace the last three days, about 140 such lists, as a
matter of fact. While a couple of OBOL subscribers
have experimented with data entry, three tweeters
subscribers have been apparently glued to their
computer screen with delight. Many thanks to Gaylord
Mink, Kerry Turley, and Emily Teachout for entering
data from their field notes, often from repetitive
birding outings to a small set of places.

Also, many thanks to Jerry Blinn for shipping me a
complimentary copy of AviSys, so I can investigate
that program's data export feature. The goal is
to make it simple for folks to upload data from their
personal AviSys datasets to the communal project.

When I get back from Boston in early September, one
of my goals (along with getting my rear out to the
Goshutes to band hawks for two weeks) will be to
open a discussion forum. Discussion will be limited
strictly to the services implemented at the project.
The goal will be to get input on suggested improvements,
new features, etc. A couple of folks entering lists
have already given me very useful feedback, some of which
I've already implemented. Since I want this project to be
truly a collaborative one, a public forum for discussion
seems like the way to go.

For those who've forgotten, the project URL is:

http://donb.photo.net/tweeterdom.

If you want to get some idea of recent activity, register
(with your e-mail - which is NOT made available to spam
engines) and afterwards select the "browse data recently
added to the project" option. This will list the last
thirty checklists or counts added to the project's
database.

Despite being on the road and in Boston, I will have
my laptop along and will be reading e-mail, and more
importantly, checking to see that all's well with the
web site on a regular basis.

Happy birding! I hope to do a little while driving

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest
Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net.