A couple more beginner questions.

>Hello again. Had a couple more questions.
>
>1. I noticed in most of the outlines I've seen that people use
>different types of punctuation, (i.e. @HOME or !ANYPLACE) I'm
>assuming this is used to simply help the program sort lists of
>stuff based upon the ASCII value of these prefix characters,
>is that right?
>

You've got it. As far as I know, the practice was popularized by David Allen's book Getting Things Done, wherin he suggests using the @ symbol this way.

>If so, would any of you be willing to share your punctuation
>characters, why you use them and the effect they have in your
>lists?

The only list that LB orders this way is the list of places. The "alpahebetical" order of common punctuation marks goes like this:

[space]
'
-
!
"
#
$
%
&
*
,
.
/
;
:
@
\
^
_
`
|
~
+
<
=
>

>2. The Sliders. Why did you choose to use sliders instead of
>just 1-5 checkboxes? I'm confused when a "rather important"
>slider button can have any of five or ten intermediary
>positions before it changes to the next lower or higher
>setting. Does this make sense?
>

I didn't choose the sliders, as I am just a fairly long-time user of LB. However, I can say that the text labels for various settings (somewhat, rather, etc.) refer to broad ranges of setting values. The importance scale actually has about 100 different potential settings, and the effort scale has about 200. The only text descriptions that refer to an absoulte value are none, essential and maximum. Don't feel that there's some correct setting for any given slider, though. Loosen up, and let your intuition do it's thing.

>3. Pie Charts - I love pie, but the pie charts are confusing
>as a beginner. Can I forget them and the effort settings for
>my tasks for now while I learn the program and revisit them
>later, or does the effort setting change the position of the
>tasks in the to-do list view?

Yes, use of the effort slider is optional. Early versions of LB didn't even have an effort slider. The effort slider determines how much credit is applied to the pie charts when you complete the task, which in turn does affect the position of tasks in to-do lists that are generated later. In other words, the effort slider setting on task X only has the potential to affect the ordering of to-do lists generated AFTER TASK X IS DONE.

>4. Is the Llama in your logo a male llama or a female llama?

You'll have to push some fur aside to find out.