One thing you can do to read the new topics is to use the Active Topics, and then save a bookmark to that. That will always get you to the new stuff regardless of how it's organized in the list of forums/topics/categories.
Also, you can edit your profile to include a lot of info including an avatar, some other personal info if you choose to disclose, software version, hardware config, company you work for, what kind of design you do, etc....
And you can put images and other attachments in using the Attachments tab at the bottom of the window. Plus, you can create polls. And assign friends and foes (in other people's profile pages), and send private messages. Plus, you can set up a signature that shows up at the bottom of each post. Great stuff!
I'm part of two other forums that use this software, so I know it from the user end, but I'm just learning it from the admin end.
