Birders, Welcome to the new OrangeCountyBirding at Groups.io! We hope you found the transition smooth and easy (heck, you didn't even have to do anything except create a password)! We have now completed the process of transferring all old listserv posts all the way back through 2000, the photo folders, and all saved files onto our new host. You will find them all readily accessible and easy to find by clicking the appropriate button in the sidebar or by bringing up the menu from the bottom of the screen if you are on a mobile device. Since this is presumably new for everybody except those of us who were testing it out last week, I thought it'd be useful to welcome you with a few tips and tricks for getting started here at our new home. Setting up your personal profile. Click the Subscription button. Under the default page (Membership), you'll be able to change the frequency with which you receive posts, and you'll be able to set your personal signature. By toggling the two checkboxes ("Use Signature For Web Posting" and "Use Signature For Email Posting"), you can add in your name and residence as your signature, and you'll never have to type them again. Even if you are sending a post from your email, the signature will be automatically added as it gets published online! Under the next page (Group Profile) you can further edit your personal information. Here if you'd like you can add a profile photo, add your display name, add a bio if you'd like, and add your own website. Your profile photo will show up directly on your posts online. Searching for content. To search for posts, topics, or a specific name, go to the Messages page. On a desktop interface this will be located on the sidebar; on a mobile interface it will be permanently located on the bottom of the site no matter which page you are on. At the top of the messages page is the search button. Click it and type in whatever it is you're looking for. I think you'll find that it is very fast and works much more reliably than the old Yahoo! search results, which half the time would kick me out to the main Groups page, and the other half of the time would spin itself to infinity after scrolling down a couple pages. If you are looking for all posts by a particular user, you can do so easily from his/her profile page. Posting new messages. To post a new message from the desktop interface, click the "New Topic" button on the sidebar. To post a new message from a mobile interface, click the "New Topic" button at the bottom of page. This is a permanent button that stays no matter where you are on the site. To post a new message from your email, simply send an email to "orangecountybirding@groups.io." Responding to messages. Messages are set to automatically respond privately, i.e. you will respond directly to the poster, not to the entire group. If you would like to respond with a group message, from the website simply click the reply button. Underneath the text box you will see three buttons: "Reply to Sender," "Discard," and "Group Reply." Click the "Group Reply" button and it will switch to a public reply. from your email simply Reply All. There is also a button at the very bottom of the email (in small text) to reply to the group. Photos. You can easily add or view photos from the Photos section of the website, accessible from the sidebar on the desktop interface or from the expandable bottom menu on a mobile interface. Note that at this time you cannot comment on photos. Jeff has been looking into this and it apparently is (understandably) a much-requested feature, so hopefully it will be incorporated in the future. Chat. Because there's nothing birders like to do more than sit behind computers all day instead of going birding (oh wait, that's just me), if you want to start a chat with your fellow group members, you can create your own chat room with the Chats button on the sidebar (desktop) or permanent bottom bar (mobile) so that you can coordinate your next big outing in real time instead of standing around waiting for texts to come in! Hopefully this is enough to help people get started using our new listserv. It's pretty straightforward and shouldn't take long to learn! We welcome your feedback and hope you will enjoy it here! -- Ryan Winkleman Rancho Santa Margarita

Some of you might be wondering how to change your default display name on the group. This is what will show when a message is sent out by you. You can go to this link: https://groups.io/g/OrangeCountyBirding/editprofile On that page, you can upload a pic (if you want) and most importantly, update your "Display Name" on that page so that we'll know who's sending what when messages are delivered. Thanks! -- Jeff Bray Irvine, CA