Dear Maxine and Tweeters,

I use AviSys, and am very happy with it . I don't work
for them or anything, but I am such a satisfied
customer that I'd do a commercial for Jerry Blinn
(sp?), the guy who created and sells AviSys. Jerry
actually takes the time to answer customer questions
individually. A couple of my friends had a suggestion
about how to improve the softward, and Jerry included
that suggestion in a recent update.

I don't see any downsides to AviSys, other than the
temptation to while away one's time looking at reports
such as "what birds in the checklist for Suriname have
I seen in Pennsylvania between 1980 and 1999?"

The Clements checklist that it uses is close enough to
what's in the popular field guides. With the ABA area
checklist "invoked," it starts off with loons and
grebes, as you would expect it to. It takes about two
seconds to switch it to a world checklist, starting
with ostriches and moving to penguins. AviSys does not
use the newfangled checklist that starts with ducks.

I recently read a trip report from a birder who was in
Ecuador; the birder mentioned his frustration with
Thayer birding software; he was unable to list a
recently split species until receiving an update from
Thayer. With AviSys, you can invent your own species
if you want to insert it into the checklist; you can
also delete a species if you so wish. I highly
recommend the Santa Barbara Software add-on, which
lets you create custom checklists from any country in
the world.

As some other Tweeters mention, you can use AviSys on
a very basic level, or get fancy with it. Right now I
have well over 100,000 bird sightings on it, and it
still churns out reports quickly. One suggestion is to
acquire an inexpensive flash drive ("pen drive") that
hooks up to a USB port. It is a quick way to back up
one's data.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch

--- Will Markey <wmarkey at clearwire.net> schrieb:

> Several years ago, I bought Birder's Diary. I DO
> NOT like it. It is
> difficult
> to learn and not intuitive (at least, to me).
>
> I am the kind that likes to take classes on the
> programs I need to
> know, such as
> Excel and Word. I retain a lot that way. That
> being said, I think it
> is a very
> complex and useful tool, but I am not the kind to
> sit and spend the time
> deciphering it.
>
> I have ofter thought that if there were classes on
> this program, I sure would
> like to take them. I
>
> Does anyone know of such classes???
>
> Will Markey
> Auburn, WA.
>
> Quoting 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
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Tweeters mailing list
> >>>> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> <mailto:Tweeters at u.washington.edu>
> >>>>
>
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Tweeters mailing list
> >>> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> <mailto:Tweeters at u.washington.edu>
> >>>
>
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Tweeters mailing list
> >> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> >>
>
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
> > _______________________________________________
> > Tweeters mailing list
> > Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> >
>
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
> >
> >
>
>
>
> Will Markey
> _______________________________________________
> Tweeters mailing list
> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
>
http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters
>



Jetzt Mails schnell in einem Vorschaufenster ?berfliegen. Dies und viel mehr bietet das neue Yahoo! Mail - www.yahoo.de/mail