Subject: [Tweeters] other opinions re: Birding software
Date: Feb 22 20:05:02 2008
From: Joel E Haas - haas.joel at mindspring.com


Maxine,

I have used Avisys from Perceptive Systems

www.avisys.net

for about 5 years. I love it. It will do what you suggested you wanted
in your query. And a lot more, yet is transparent and flexible.
--


Joel E. Haas, MD
1182 Big Leaf Way NE
Redmond, WA 98053

Haas.Joel at Mindspring.com
425-836-8072


Reginald David wrote:
> Aloha Matt, Maxine and Tweeters,
>
> I use Avisys on a Mac and it works great, if you want to make to make
> lists for pretty much anywhere in the world you may want to consider
> Santa Barbara Softwares BirdArea, the data files are importable to
> Avisys and appear to work flawlessly. I use Windows XP on my Mac using
> an Intel based Mac and Bootcamp - there are newer programs that may be
> better, but I have never had a problem with Boootcamp.
>
> Aloha
> Reg.
>
> Reginald David
> Rana Productions, Ltd.
> P. O. Box 1371
> Kailua, Kona, Hawaii
>
> 329-9141 Phone
> rdavid at ilhawaii.net <mailto:rdavid at ilhawaii.net>
> P Please consider the environment before printing this email.
>
>
>
> On Feb 22, 2008, at 3:28 PM, mattxyz at earthlink.net
> <mailto:mattxyz at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi Maxine & Tweeters -
>>
>> I'd be interested in hearing some other opinions online, personally,
>> since I believe this hasn't been discussed in a while.
>>
>> Here's my experience [usual caveats, no financial interest, etc]
>>
>> *Mac*:
>> I've used* Birdbrain* version 5.0 for Mac for years now. It is good,
>> but I wish there were something else. Birdbrain hasn't been updated
>> since 1998, and it doesn't yet even run on OSX. I haven't tried to use
>> their customer support in a long while, but when I did try a few years
>> ago, I never received a response. Basically, I'd be happy with
>> Birdbrain if it were being updated. It runs a bit slow on some of the
>> listing functions, but I bet a revised version could clean up a lot of
>> that.
>>
>> There is also a program called* Wings* - has anyone had experience
>> with this? From what I can see on the web, it looks decent. One thing
>> that doesn't sound great is that it looks like you have to 'subscribe'
>> to it, paying an annual fee -- and if you don't pay, you can't enter
>> more species. That sounds dangerous to me, and I'd rather buy software
>> free & clear than remain on the hook over the foreseeable future.
>>
>> *PC*:
>> The only PC listing software I have experience with is* Avisys*, and
>> I've found it to be really excellent. It is regularly upgraded, the
>> support responses come quickly, and it seems clearly made with a
>> birder's record-keeping needs in mind. You can easily keep state &
>> county & other checklists, and running reports on these lists [life,
>> year, species not seen, etc] is easy and fast. There's a lot of
>> flexibility and power inside the program, but it is set up so that it
>> can be used pretty easily at any level, without having to spend a long
>> time becoming a computer programmer to understand it.
>> I'm sure there are other downsides, but the biggest one in my mind is
>> the reliance on a checklist in Clements taxonomic order, an ordering
>> of species that can take some getting used to if you are more
>> comfortable with the ABA [US fieldguide] ordering of species. I
>> imagine it is pretty hard to work around this problem though, if one
>> wants to present the whole world checklist of birds.
>>
>> Hope this helps a bit,
>>
>> Matt Bartels
>> Seattle, WA
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> I know that there has been past discussions on Tweeters about the
>>> best birding software to easily organize lists etc. I am ready to buy
>>> a program now and would like to find out what I should get. I would
>>> like something simple that would allow me to make a life list and
>>> sub-lists via state or country. I don't think I need lots of bells
>>> and whistles.
>>>
>>> Please reply to me via email if you don't want to launch a new full
>>> Tweeters discussion.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Maxine, Seattle
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the
>>> silence. - Robert Lynd
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
>>
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