I thought I would share a little of what I have learned these past few days. You may have already discovered them yourselves but I wish I had known ahead of time.

Tips on making your account look how you want it to. All done by clicking on 'customize your homepage' on your homepage above your photo.

1. You can keep your flickr screen name if you wish and also have the option to reveal what personal info you reveal and to what level of contacts. (Profile & Privacy)
2. You can not only add a personal photo in the narrow band at the top of your homepage, but you can also change the welcome message. (Display)
3. You can change the entire layout of your homepage (so cool!) by moving the boxes around as you see fit. (Display)
4. For some reason I have found the only way to get a box for your favourites is to fav one of your own photos which will then become the main photo in the box. Wierd.
5. A box for your albums (sets) will appear after you have 5 photos in a set. I still don't know if the albums will be represented here on a random basis or not. Time will tell.

Some of the biggest new features on ipernity are:

1. The articles (which you are reading). I think it's a pretty neat feature allowing us to tell the world what's on our mind. We no longer have to change our screen name to 'off sick' or 'so far behind'. Just write an article that your contacts will see when they visit you.
2. The guestbook, on the lower right of your main page, is where people can drop by and say hi.
3. Who's online at the moment. This will pop up when your contacts are online giving you a chance to interact with them immediately.
4. Who has visited you lately is a great idea allowing you to see who has shown an interest in your stream even if they don't comment or fav. This option can be turned off so it is not 100% perfect but I think a great way to meet new contacts.
5. Docs is a way to store music (non copyrighted) but I really don't know how do use this feature.

Some of the most asked questions:

1. You can only get the HTML code for posting photos in comments after you become a member of the 'Club' (Pro status). Club status also gives you a translator that allows you to decipher all those foreign accounts. COOL!
2. The recent activity on yours and your contacts streams is in the 'News' section. To see what has happened on yours click 'Your Space' and for your contacts click 'Your History'.
3. The fav star is on the banner/flag to the right of the photo along with some logo thingies and most importantly the group icon. Clicking on this will allow you to add to a group, but only if you have already joined a group of course. You can also add to groups with the organizer by dragging photos - a faster way if you are adding multiple pics to multiple groups. The banner also contains the 'More Options' click which contains a whole heap of fun things to do.

After you have set up your home page to your liking you rarely have to come back to it. Just like your home, you mow the lawn, plant flowers and pick up any wind-strewn garbage to keep it pretty but rarely do you stand on the sidewalk and stare. Almost all your time will be spent in the 'News' page. It is here that you see who has visited you, contact uploads, recent activity and Explore. I really like how your can choose which level of contact you want to check out.

Anyways, thanx for your patience if you managed to read all this. I have probably missed a lot of important stuff, so feel free to add any other additional tips etc. in the comments below,but these are some of the things I wish I had known from the beginning.

So welcome to all us refugees...let's have fun here.

Jim

Edit:
A couple more things I have since found out:
1. You can grab the HTML code thingy from a photo on flickr & paste it on ipernity - an end-run around paying to join the 'Club'.
2. On the 'News' page when you see the box that shows contacts recent uploads it only shows a few. You must click 'See More' to view all of them. You don't want to miss out because of a click.
3. The favourites box does indeed show your own favourites of your own photos in a random order. Don't forget that when you check on your or someone elses favs you can choose to see all of them or choose which contact. A neat idea.

Will continue to add when I find something nifty.