1. Welcome to our two new Directors, Dan Mooers and Peter Sotheran. You can see their pictures in the ICUFR Officers page or open: http://www.icufr.org/main/officers.html

2. A wonderful recognition for our own Webmaster:

I struggle with Robin trying to get him to put his name and picture, as webmaster, on our own website. But, this award is far too great to ignore, and it will tell you how much he deserves this recognition. I am copying only a small amount of the entire article, but will send it by email to anyone who wants it all. Makes me wonder why he was willing to take over our little website, but I'm very grateful he did. (Editor: Carl Cardey)

"On Sunday June 25th, at the District 9790 Changeover District Governor David Yap recognised Robin Chapple with a sapphire PHF."

"Robin launched the first District web page in 1996 and has been District Webmaster continuously ever since. The District has a thousand pages. In recent years he has built a communication network which provides a total of 200 alias addresses for District Executive, <dg@rotary9790.org.au> for instance, broad cast email addresses. <allclubs@rotary9790.org.au> for instance and mailing lists for committees and clubs. Robin was webmaster for five Task Force sites for RI President Frank Devlyn."

"Robin has been club bulletin editor for nine, not continuous, years. In Australia most clubs have a weekly bulletin which certainly was not the case in UK before we left. Robin produces hard cover club directories, manuals for Youth Service, Membership, Constitution and Bye Laws, Club History and so on."

"Robin is a member and Director of three Rotary fellowships: International Computer users Fellowship of Rotarians, ICUFR; A charter member of Rotarians On The Internet, ROTI; and the Fellowship of Rotarian Editors and Publishers................"

3. Members Only: Don't forget that with Board Approval, we are about to inaugurate a members only section on the website, and it will only allow Current paid up members to gain access. There is much of the website that will still remain open to all. In addition, beginning with the September issue, only Current members will receive the bulk of the newsletter each month.

We will continue sending the Table of Contents to those who are only a year behind in their dues, as an enticement to become Current. There was great discussion of the pros and cons of this issue, but the board feels that those who pay their dues, deserve something that any casual reader does not get. Discussion is always encouraged either in the mail lists or the Forum.

Editor: Carl P Cardey

In our "ICUFR Community Forums" www2.icufr.org this past month has been a fascinating view of at least two different Outstanding Matching Grant Programs. Sally Platt started this thread with the idea of highlighting the ability of ICUFR to help in finding and successfully completing Matching Grant Programs.

This is in the "International Service" folder and in the "Current & Upcoming WCS Project Partners" sub-folder, but all you have to do to find it is to open the following link, and Check the second page especially:
http://www2.icufr.org/viewtopic.php?t=558&start=15

While you are there We would encourage you to also add any projects that you have done.

Go ahead and prowl around the rest of the Forum. All topics are Serious, EXCEPT for the "Friends and Fun" Folder at the top. Mel Fabrikant keeps watch on that Folder and we most all our fun there, just because we are good friends. None of us are bothered by intrusions, so COME ON, jump in anywhere you find something of interest and let us know what you think. We're always looking for new Rotary friends.

Carl P Cardey, Editor

The Rotary List has been very quiet since the International Convention, perhaps due to those attending the Convention taking the scenic route home via extended holidays in Europe.

There was a brief review of the events at the Convention and this turned quickly to looking ahead to the ICUFR Conference in Ithaca, 5th-8th October. A wealth of information was provided about alternative flights and code-sharing airlines that fly into the USA and onwards to Ithaca. A question about an ICUFR information leaflet lead to a discussion about international paper sizes; apparently the world is out of step with the US which decided against adopting the 'A' paper sizes, used in the Europe for the last forty years. Must be time to send the missionaries across the Atlantic pond again!

There were technical questions about how to manage mass mailings and on the user-friendliness of Firefox. The first few days of July produced a sack full of congratulatory messages to members who are taking the Presidential chair in their Clubs. This inevitably led to some gentle Mickey-taking; all in the name of Fellowship, of course.

The issue of dual - versus - single gender Clubs came back to the surface, generating one of the most varied and lengthy topics in recent months. One member had been pressured into leaving a Club that wished to remain single gender; another member reported that he had two female members inducted at the July hand-over meeting. A member in New Zealand reported the history of the introduction of lady members in the 1980's - a helpful reminder to those who have forgotten and those who never knew the story.

The month closed with the second lengthiest topic - and it's still running - on how much members pay in dues to their Clubs. Some include the meals; some include TRF contributions; some don't eat at all; some cover official guests in the dues. The answers are as diverse as the nature of Rotary itself. New readers start here by subscribing to our Taranto Rotary mail list at https://www.taranto.com/mailman/listinfo/rotary for serious Rotary topics.

There is also a Rotachat mail list, for Friends and Fun topics at: https://www.taranto.com/mailman/listinfo/rotachat and/or strictly RIBI topics at: https://www.taranto.com/mailman/listinfo/ribi

Toodle-pip,

Peter Sotheran

Peter Sotheran

Is Rotary Expensive?

This question posed by Gordon Hankin resulted in over 40 responses from a dozen Rotarians. The original question discussed financial capability as an explanation – either too expensive or okay depending on income level. But another issue discussed was “How do we justify “Service Above Self” and then spend money on non-productive meetings such as the Institute and RI Conventions.

One comment even called these meetings “Boondoggles” (a term that classifies pretentious business assemblages that are actually fun and games outings). This precipitated comments from those Rotarians where Districts or Clubs pay for the members to attend such meetings. Further disclosure of “compulsory contributions” to make politically minded Rotarians (some seeking the highest level and rank) resulted in a quote from the MOP banning “compulsory contributions to The Rotary Foundation.” (Thank you Sally)

If some districts or clubs don’t pay, many members wouldn’t attend the meetings was a reply. “As a percentage, not many attend now was one comment.” If the meetings were held in reasonable venues, we could afford it. Venues such as colleges and universities were suggested.

Making the meetings interesting and valuable was mentioned and at least one Institute was cited as worthwhile training grounds for District Governor Nominees. President Elect Training and Governor Elect Training programs were cited and comments indicated that some were well run and others were not.

A number of members suggested making the meetings less costly and giving the monies to TRF or other Rotary causes. Some wanted to attend Institutes in other Zones that were worthwhile.

Ken Scheffel

Ken Scheffel

I have a friend who is an absolute nut about finding and using freeware. There are very few programs that he will buy. Safety is his primary concern and I don't know that he has EVER been infected by any viruses, spam and other worrisome objects. And Him I TRUST. He has many tutorials he made himself, and he has links to hundred or thousands of other tutorials, links, and programs. His website is: http://www.heffy.com

Some items that came from him to start this section are below:

1. MOUSE CURSOR: Do you have a hard time finding or chasing your little mouse text cursor? How would you like to make it red and a little bigger (I)? At last: a writer-friendly text cursor, Free! And it's only 51.5KB. I fell in love with this one and it won't take you but a couple minutes to DL, install and use it. You will go to "Vippy: the writer-friendly text cursor", at http://officeboosters.com/vippy.htm You will also find other tips there for Microsoft Office products.

2. NONAGS: Another Genuine Free Software Site for everyone - Since 1995. "Nonags is the safest place on the Internet to download free software from. “Before we list anything here we check for viruses, trojans, spyware etc.”http://www.nonags.com

3. EASY LINUX - UBUNTU: For all of you who snarl and cringe and say bad four letter words about that nasty monster MS Operating System (OS), here is a Linux based OS program. I have always cringed at the thought of having to learn this new program because I have 15 years of time invested in MSOS, but my friend tells me that this is the easiest form of Linux to learn. Googleing it came up with 55,000,000 hits, so it must be either very good, or very bad. Nothing in between >G<. Ubuntu is currently funded by Canonical Ltd. On July 8, 2005, Mark Shuttleworth (Just do a search on Mark and check him out. )

As I understand it, One can't just install without starting over and uninstalling XP, unless it has it's own partition. My friend tells me that Ubuntu even makes a new partition for you. It is free, and they will even send you the program on a disk, gratis.

"You can download the CD and burn it yourself or have us ship you a CD.

To download: Visit our download page."http://www.ubuntu.com/download

"To order a pressed CD: Fill in your shipping address in Shipit - the Ubuntu CD Distribution System. We won't give or sell your information to anyone or use it for anything other than sending you these CDs. If you are part of a library or other community system, you are welcome to request CDs for that group, such as a LUG or school."

"Absolutely Free of Charge

Ubuntu is Free Software, and available to you free of charge. It's also Free in the sense of giving you rights of Software Freedom, but you probably knew that already! Unlike many of the other commercial distributions in the free and open source world (Libranet, Lindows, Xandros, Red Hat) the Ubuntu team really does believe that Free software should be free of software licencing charges."

"Fast, Easy Install

Ubuntu doesn't have a pretty graphical installer, it has a FAST and EASY installer. OK, there are still a couple of places where you need to know what you are doing, but the defaults will work for most people. We have kept the distribution installation CD set down to one single CD, everything else is available online if you need it. On a typical computer, the Ubuntu installation should be done in less than 25 minutes."

"The installer may not be GUI, but you only ever need to use it once, because we support ongoing upgrades via the network, from version to version. You never need to reinstall the operating system, just upgrade from each released version to the next when you want to."

"Immediately Useful

When you finish your Ubuntu installation your system is immediately usable. You have a full set of business productivity applications, internet applications, drawing and graphics applications, and games. That one CD gives you a very good desktop environment out of the box, with many applications for business, home and personal computer users installed by default. There are thousands of additional pieces of software that are just a few clicks away, but we've done the hard work to get the basics in place easily and effectively."

I am intrigued enough to be tempted to try it, but still need to do some study first. UBUNTO is found at http://www.ubuntu.com/ Other info on it can be found on the WIKI site at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Linux>

OK, Irwin and Jeff, you are the Linux experts. What do you think? Is it easy to install? Will having it in it's own partition allow you to pick which Browser you want to run?

4. RESTORE POINTS: There was a question sent back to me from last month asking about restore points. This is your newsletter so Keep the questions coming. I don't know many of the answers but I am getting quite good at googleing. Did you know that Googleing was added to the dictionary this month as a Verb?

So, back to the story: Thanks to SearchWinit.com at http://searchwinit.techtarget.com as Paul Harvey would put it, this is the 'rest of the story'. And YES you definitely need to set restore points.

" - A restore point is a saved "snapshot" of a computer's data at a specific time. Restore points are a component of the Windows System Restore utility. By creating a restore point, you can save the state of the operating system and your own data so that if future changes cause a problem, you can restore the system and your data to the way it was before the changes were made. When a restore point is established, your computer creates a backup copy of all data at that particular time. The possible types of restore points are: system checkpoints, which are scheduled restore points that your computer creates; manual restore points, which the user creates; and installation restore points, which are automatically created when you install certain programs."

"It's a good idea to create a restore point before you make any changes to your computer that could potentially cause problems or make the system unstable. When you run the System Restore utility, it displays a calendar that lists the restore points created (every day that your computer is used will have at least one restore point and some may have several, depending on usage). Even if you haven't manually created a restore point, you can specify restore points that have been automatically created. If you get in trouble, you just select a restore point that predates the difficulty, and System Restore will undo any changes since then. Windows XP creates a restore point each time: an unsigned device driver or a System Restore-compatible application is installed; Windows Update is run; or an earlier restore point is restored."

"To create or choose a restore point in Windows XP: from the Start menu, select Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. From the System Restore window you can select Restore my computer to an earlier time, or, Create a restore point. If you choose the first option, you will be able to select a restore point that is already stored in your computer. If you choose the second option, you will be asked to give the restore point a descriptive name to help you identify it, and the utility will back up all the data and save it with the restore point's name, and the time it was created. Then, if need be, you can select this restore point in the future by following the same route, and choosing the option to restore your computer to an earlier time."

When I (editor) depended on this system, I made a lot of restore points: every time before I installed a new program, as I didn't trust XP to do it; or even before I uninstalled a program because who knows what is or isn't changed in the registry; and once to eliminate a virus. Yes you can even get rid of a viral infection by restoring to a previous point.

The reason I personally went to a ghosting program was because one has to be able to access the program in order to get to the restore points, and I ran into a problem that totally locked me out of the operating system necessitating cleaning the HD and reinstalling the XPOS. My buddy from above, has me set up to where I don't care if a HD freezes up. I can install new within 15-20 minutes, and that includes MSXP. But Ghosting is a story for another time.

It's obvious that this is strictly for MSXP users, but if anyone would like to know about Linux, or even other topics (that I know nothing about >G<) but can Google, let me know. I'll try.

5. AVA FIND: Googleing is great for searching the internet, but what about your own computer? Do you have over 275,000 files in your computer like I do? Do you have a hard time finding a file (once in a while - HA -) I CANNOT live without this little 950KB free Program. < http://www.think-less-do-more.com/avafind >

The amazing thing about it is that from the second you type the first letter, you can watch it begin the search process. It is stunning to me how fast it works, and it seldom takes more than a second. I have 2 HD’s broken down into 4 partitions, plus a USB HD for backup, and it searches them all. If you have a network, the Pro version is only $19.95USD, and you can then search any computer on your network. Having used it for almost a year, I would gladly pay $50USD if I had to. I use it so often that I keep handy it in the System Tray, and I usually struggle to keep that as small as I can.

Ava Find says "Think Less Do More Services:

Ava Find speeds up your daily computing experience by letting you find any file on your computer instantly. Open music and video files from any folder using convenient one-click browse buttons. Ava Find can list folders by size instantly, making hard-drive cleanup simple and easy. The Scout Bot feature lets you discover newly downloaded files instantly without the need to run a search. Ava Find includes free search functionality and includes a 30-day preview of Ava Find Professional features, such as the Scout Bot."

• "Find Instantly
• Search without delay.
• Amazing Accuracy
• Sophisticated ranking shows what you want near the top.
• Find New Files Automatically
• Scout Bot finds newly downloaded files automatically. You don't even have to enter a search!
• Browse Music and Videos

Do you have music and video files in different folders all over your computer? With Ava Find you can browse them effortlessly with the single click of a button.

Clean up Your Hard Drive

Ava Find can show you all your files and folders by size, instantly. Ava Find takes the guesswork out of finding the biggest file or folder on your computer."

Editor: Carl P Cardey ccardey@verizon.net