Hi all 
Can’t seem to find an appropriate forum for an introduction, so off-topic it is and off-topic it is not, hehe.
Situated in South Africa, been experimenting on/off with 2D and 3D software since the days of DKB Raytracer and Autodesk Animator on my 286. After being introduced to 3D studio for DOS I was quite hooked and started learning more about 3D and 3D studio in general. While it’s been mostly a spare-time hobby I have done the occasional paid work for companies with 3D Studio Max.
I also have some DTP skills and dabble with music creation, being an old Modedit and Fastracker artist back in the 90’s, I currently work with Renoise and have done the occasional paid jingle for a Studio nearby. C programming is also one of my interests, learned most of what I know from Linux with it’s vast amount of free and open software and resources.
Sadly due to other priorities I had to neglect my 3D hobbies for a while, after around 2002 (The Max R4 days) I had fallen out of the developments. Fortunately I now have renewed interest in getting my 3D skills up to scratch and have been browsing around. My Max being very outdated, and finances being tight I’ve decided to restart my skills on Blender, which I’ve been intrigued by since the days of NAN before they sold the code, and watched the birth of the Blender Foundation and open CG in general.
I’ve started my quest with the Blender 2.5x series, figuring that 2.49b wouldn’t be the right place to start considering it’s age and the differences between them would be another unnecessary adjustment in the future. I’ll admit I have been waiting for the stable 2.5 series before getting into Blender as I’d rather have a more pleasant adjustment than hitting beta issues at the same time.
Well all that said, I’ve been finding the adjustment from Max to Blender to be one that requires a lot of patience and learning much of the tools that have some minor differences. I’ve been following some of the tutorials and documentation available for 2.5, though it’s very slow going and tedious when you don’t know what the techniques and conventions are in the Blender world.
Are there any resources for an old Max guy like me that deal with these differences and help ease the transition? Like how the navigation constraint systems differ or small things like if it is possible to render a 3D view instead of camera like Max does? Or what tools one would use in Blender instead of the Lathe / Path tools in Max, or how to navigate the camera while in camera mode like Max. I know most of this information is probably in the documentation somewhere, but finding it all piece by piece is a tad mystifying. A Max / Maya guide to adapting to Blender would be an interesting and probably useful resource if anyone did.
Anyway, hoping to contribute something to the community later when I’m more comfortable. I’m also hoping to get familiar with Python and the Blender development code, though that seems like quite another undertaking I’ll not think about too much right now 
Greets and thanks to the BF and all the developers and community members for Blender!