Right Angle Club

Friday at 12:33 In the City of Philadelphia -Thoughout the Year..

2006-02-03T08:57:00.000-08:00

Friday at 12:33 In the City of Philadelphia -Thoughout the Year..

Dear Right Angle Members:

Bush is orating, Oregon is shaking, Arizona is baking, Kennedy is conniving, Alito is surviving, Zawahiri is tauting, Hamas is flaunting, Iran is daunting, Bernanke is ascending, America is spending, Sadam is ranting, Howard Dean is panting and all is well at the Right Angle!

The President's Dinner was unparalleled success. The Philadelphia Club (courtesy of Dan Sossaman) provided a sumptuous meal and Fred Miller taught us all of Irving Berlin's songs with rousing finale led by John Wetzel of God Bless America. If you missed it you lost out on a great Right Angle tradition!

Luncheon Department

Feb. 3 Jasbir S. Khurana, Col. Indian Army Retired. Retired.
After a brilliant career which included command of a Gurka battalion,
the Colonel will speak on the history of the Sikh religion.

10 Judith Guston, Curator of the Rosenbach Museum and Library The
Rosenbach is a world famous repository of rare books and materials and Judith
will focus on the Benjamin Franklin display which includes original copies of Poor
Richard's Almanacs.

17. NO LUNCHEON --- President's Day

24. Zachary Stalberg, Director Committee of Seventy. For many years, Mr. Stalberg
was editor of the Philadelphia Daily News and recently he was taken a key positon
with the warch-dog private Committee which closely monitors the activites of City
Government.

So get up, get dressed, and get to The Right Angle. We cover the scope of human experience from religion to history to politics and all in an hour and a half!

Cordially,

Geraldo Rivera Hinckle

January 2006 Friday at 12:33 in the City of Philadelphia..

2006-01-06T09:20:00.000-08:00

January 2006 Friday at 12:33 in the City of Philadelphia..

Dear Right Angle Members:

Happy New Year from the Right Angle Club! May 2006 be Healthy , Happy, and Prosperous for you and your families!

California is Drowning, the Eagles are frowning, China is alariming, Twain is arming, Oklahoma is smoking, Iran is provoking, Isreal is not joking and all is weel at Right Angle.

Speakers Department:

Jan 13. The Rt. Reverned Dr. David L. Moyer, Bishop of the Armed Forces, Rector of the Church of the Good Shepard, Rosemont, PA "Counter-Reformaztion in the Angelican Church: The Age of Relativism

Jan 20. Dr. Marja Hoel-Smit, Director International Housing Finace Program, Wharton School "helping People to Help Themselves: Mirco Credit in the Developing Nations

Jan 27. No Luncheon-- President Black Tie Dinner at the Philadelphia Club 6pm..

Please feel free to bring guests. The Board of Control in its infinite wisdom has decreed that your guests may feast on our sumptuos fare and enjoy our congeniality for FREE. Hopefully our infectious fellowship and warm atmosphere will compel them to join our group. We will welcome them into the fold.

So say prayer for our brave soldiers who gallantly stand in the breech and keep us safe from those wretched souls who wish us harm and get yourself to Right Angle. The New Year promises more good food, interesting speakers and a new slate of leadership.

Cordially,

Michael Savage Hinckle

November 2005 Fridays at 12:33 in the City of Philadelphia - Thoughout the year.

2005-10-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Right Angle Member:

Pakistan is quaking, Harriet is qualifying, Russia is quarreling, the birds are quarantining, Donald Duck is quacking up and all is well at Right Angle.

SPEAKERS DEPARTMENT:

Nov- 4 Lloyed B. Roach, President, WCOJ 1420 AM Radio "Form Spark to Space"

11- Geri Sicola, Director for InternationalPrograms, American Friends Service Committee- Emergency Assistance and Long-Term Recovery Projects

18- David Powell, President, Powell Pump and Well Drilling World water Issues: Is
there Enough

25- No Luncheon- Happy Thanksgiving

Enclosed is a brochure from the World Affairs Council Promoting a trip to Washington from May 8 to 13, 2006. Please contact George Ross Fisher if you are interested in participating.

So get up, get dressed, and get to Rigt Angle where we will quench your quest for quality quarry and quiet your quizzical mind with quality quotations from our qualified quorum of quintessential quipsters. (Whew)

Cordially,
Huey, Dewey, Louey Q. Hinckle (All bird Flu free)

October 2005 Fridays at 12:33 in the City of Philadelphia- Throught the Year.

2005-09-26T08:24:00.000-07:00

October 2005

Dear Right Angle Member:

Katrina has gone swooning, Rita is looming, GAza is Bomming (with gunfire) John Roberts is assuming, the Califorina sea lions are balloning, Democrats are fuming and all is well at Right Angle.

SPEAKERS DEPARTMENT:

Oct. 7- John P. Maher, M.D. Director Chester County Health Department " The Mossaic of Preparedness.

Oct. 14- Anthony J. Brown, the Curtis Institute of Music "On of Phialdelphia's Secret Gems"

Oct. 21- Dan Sossaman (our own Right Angler) and First City Trooper"Reminiscences from the Balkan Deployment"

Oct. 28- David Scott, Capt., U.S. Coast Guard "The Coast, Bio-Terror and Preparedness"

What an organization! Fine Food, fellowship and cutting edge presentaions on the front page issues of the day. So get up get dressed ( even if you need help) and get to Right Angle.

Kudos to Brother Leith for a wonderful picnic at Windy Knoll, his palace in Haverford!

Cordially,

Michael Chertoff Hinckle

September 2005 Fridays at 12:33pm in the City of Philadelphia - Throughout the Year

2005-08-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

As the summer draws to a close, the heat index is showing little regard. So what else is hot? The Boad of Control, that's what!! Yes, your BOC is coming back after a long summer slumber. With a well rested, Jim Kilcur<auctions>" at the controls and a dozen other wizards at his side, except big things. On the agenda for BOC will be the establishment of a fines committee to check whether you are wearing your club rosette or tie. They will be watching your dietary restraint as well: only one dessert per member; two martini maximum before 12:33pm (you're Ok Rod, just check in with Mallinson for the perfect one and that you are pronouncing the word correctly). The wearing of your name tag is essential. Some Members can't remember who you are from week to week. Name tags come in two shades of green, unless your complection has changed, then add another.

"Ever notice that when certain members come around during lunch to collect the raffle money, they ask for the money before coming up with the ticket? When I buy something, I usually am handed the merchandise first, after approving it, then pay for it. Bad form I would say. I am looking forward to the September 17th Autumn picnic at the Leith's; I hope you are.(See form enclosed) It's a great venue and I'm sure David will come up with a surprise of sorts. You will have to go easy on the libations, as there is a swimming pool there. Many a guest have become disoriented only to find what Sponge Bob has known for some time. Their auburn haired retriever named Biscuit will be on the property. He is very friendly, but could feast upon your meal while you are looking the other way. Should you be a victim, don't chase Biscuit, as he will surely lead you into the pool.

We are all wishing Art Huntley a speedy recovery from his surgery. It would be
nice if some of our non regulars and their ladies could make it on the 17th.

For you intellectual requisites this month, digest the following voice of knowledge for your edification:

Sept. 2 - Labor Day Weekend Holiday

9 - Dianah Neff Phila. Chief information Officer on Wireless, Broadband, Internet update.

17 - Autumn Picnic

23- Major General Geo. W. Miller, III Wall Street approach to shaping up the Pentgon

30 - Richard W. Palmer, Esq., Spellbinding tales of an admiralty attorney or escrow at
Sea.

Cum dignitate Otium Ciecero first Century B.C.

Your Most humble servant,

Merrill H.J. Roth

September 17 Special Event

2005-08-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

David and Lee Leith (174 Golf House Road, Haverford) have very kindly offered the use of their house for our September outing. It's a splendid location, just across the road from the 15th hole of the Merion Golf Club. Very private, splendid view, but very easy to reach. Horace Krumbauer, who designed the Racquet Club, also designed this house. I understand Tiger Woods will be wandering around the neighborhood at this time, but we can't guarantee you will see him.

The outing will be an early dinner, or late picnic, catered by Rudy, who was the chef at Corinthian Yacht Club for our dinners in earlier years. He's now the chef at the Franklin Inn Club, and is causing quite a revival of interest.

Saturday, September 17, 2005, at 3:30 PM.

Please, please give us an RSVP at 856-427-6135. If George Fisher doesn't answer, just tell Torie my secretary, or leave a message on the answering device.

As is customary, there is no charge for members, but we have to make a charge of $50 for each guest you bring along.

DIRECTIONS: Go to Haverford College on Lancaster Avenue. The main road into the College is called Railroad Avenue, which changes its mame to College Avenue. Just keep going on College Avenue, over a little humped bridge over the trolley line. Immediately turn left after you cross the bridge, and then very promptly turn right into a semi-hidden driveway at 174 Golf House Road. We'll try to tie a balloon to the mailbox at the entrance, if we think of it in time.

The only possibility for confusion would be to get on Golf View Road instead of Golf House Road, but they intersect; if you get to Darby Road, you've gone too far. If you're reading this, you must have a computer, so take a look at www.maps.google.com

August Meetings Fridays at 12:33 in the City of Philadelphia.

2005-07-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

August 2005

Dear Right Angler:

As if hurricanes such as Ivan weren't bad enough last Season, we are off to an early start this year with Dennis the Menace and Emily. Now Franklin is on the move. Has the war on terror expanded the weather? What can we do if Global warming is really on the way? One thing is to cool off on Friday's at the Right Angle with frozen daiquiri, a gin Rickey, a Planter's or Fish House punch , a chilled brew or, if you will excuse the prohibition expression, an iced tea. On a nice sunny day any of the former, except the latter, could cause a self inflicted hurricane of the brain. So Easy on the Sauce.

This time of year always reminds me of the Friday raffle. I've only won it once and that was on a hot day in August when we had one of the lowest turnouts (hence one of the smallest pots-single digit ever.) Let's keep the attendance and learn from our own their recent or past experiences as well as the unexpected knowledge of our fellow Anglers. Don't forget to bring with you a humorous story or enlightening tidbit to make the get togethers all the more enjoyable.

Please remember: When paying cash for drinks at the Racquet Club Bar your gratuity is included in the price.

For edification beyond the norm:

Aug 5 - James Mallinson Pontificating on Proper Pronunciation and Elocution of the Vernacular.

12- David Leith Hablaing Espanol Motorcycling en Mexico

19- Buck Scott Surveying is the World Round or Just the Globe Flat

26- Paul W. Shaffer Curator of Eniac Museum History of Computers

August is the month for the Latin recess, but bear in mind, autumn is just around the corner.

Your humble fumbler,

Merrill H.J. Roth

The Club's Internet Address

2005-06-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

In geek language, the address of a website is known as a URL. Once you locate a website, the URL is usually found located in a little box near the top of the screen. In our case, it has an orange B displayed just before the URL, which is http://rightangleclub.blogspot.com

So, write that down somewhere, to participate in the website.

Better still:

take the pointer of your cursor and place it over the orange B or over the URL itself. Keep holding down the left=button of your mouse and drag the URL over to the desktop. If that doesn't make sense, think of the screen of your computer as a desktop, with a window on it. The browser is within the window. If you drag the URL over to the desktop, it should stay there. And then, in the future all you have to do is click on it.

The idea is that thereafter you don't have to remember your club's URL. All you have to do is remember not to erase the Favicon. Favicon is geek language for favorite Icon.

Board of Control Meeting Minutes 06/14/2005

2005-06-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

June 14, 2005

Members present: James F. Kilcur, President. C. Thomas Howes, Geroge Ross Fisher, Neale C. Bringhurst, Buck Scott, Rodman S. Rothermel, J. Edwin Wood, John A. Baird Jr., Joseph DiGiuseppe, David Leith, Richard W. Palmer, and Robert Bryan.

James Kilcur presided.
The meeting was called to order at 12:39 PM
The minutes for the 05/10/2005 meetings were approved.

Treasurer's Report

Rod Rothermel reported that the treasury was in balance and would not require further change at present. He noted that as of our fall meeting we may have to consider an additional charge to members for the social functions.
Balance available on 05/31/2005 was $5,460.47.
The Treasurer's report was approved.

New Members

Both Don Barshinger and James Heaney were dully nominated for membership and they were voted into the club by the board.

Social Functions

George Fisher suggested, with the concurrence of the treasurer, that we not have a summer outing. This was agreed to by the board. David Leith volunteered the use of his home for a Fall get together of the club. The board voted in favor of this to be held Saturday September 17 at 3:00PM.

Speakers Schedule

Neale Bringhurst indicated that specker's schedule is well in hand for the summer and September as well.

Next Board of Control Meeting Will Be September 13, 2005

There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 1:43 PM. Respectfully Submitted,

J. Edwin Wood
Recording Secretary

Lindbergh Boulevard

2005-03-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

As Charles Lindbergh was getting ready to fly to Paris, one of the Guggenheim family remarked to him "Look me up when you get back from Paris". That was a joke; he never expected to see Lindbergh alive again.

But Lindbergh was on a roll when he got back, and paid a visit to Guggenheim. Together, they cooked up the idea of a public relations tour to promote aviation. Lindbergh would fly to every one of the 48 states, and make a speech. One of the places visited was Philadelphia, which had a new airport to promote. So, a road was renamed in Lindbergh's honor, leading from the airport to Bartram's Garden, formerly 54th and Elmwood.

The significance of this solemn matter is that The Right Angle Club is having a boat tour of the Schuylkill River, followed by a dinner under a tent in Bartram's Garden. It would have been Spring 2005, but the tides limit the floating dock to just a few suitable evenings and it turned out to be impractical. But by next spring they hope to have a permanent pier, and a lot more flexibility in available dates.

Meanwhile, the Bartram Garden organization has a website, which you should be able to view by quickly double-clicking the following link:

Bartram's Garden
www.bartramsgarden.org

Links

2005-02-14T14:10:00.000-08:00

A "link" is a direct connection between two web pages. You will notice it as text in a different color, underlined. Put your cursor over it and quickly double-click. After a moment's pause, you should find yourself at the other site. These things make footnotes completely obsolete.

Try the following:

Lake Mohonk Mountain House
Google Maps
Right Angle Club Electronic Newsletter
Philadelphia Reflections
Hall Watch (City Hall gossip)
Philly Fun Guide

If you like any of these, drag it to your desktop by holding the clicker down when you are over the favicon (little jigger to the left of the URL). When you later click on the favicon on the desktop, you will go straight to the website without intermediate steps.

Lake Mohonk Mountain House October 14-15

2005-02-14T12:12:00.000-08:00

We're trying something new, an out-of-town get together of the Right Angle Club. The idea is to build sociability among the members and their wives, and to explore just what it is the members would like to get out of their club.

The first event is at Lake Mohonk Mountain House, in New Paltz, New York, October 14-15, 2005. That's usually the peak of the fall leaf-color season, and is the most popular time of the year at the lodge. So, even though there is snow still on the ground as this notice goes out, you need to call ahead to make a room reservation right now. 1-845-255-1000 You'll need to make a $400 deposit.

What is Lake Mohonk Mountain House? Well, it's a Quaker-run resort on the top of a mountain right beside a lake. The water in the lake actually comes from another mountain that's higher but out of sight. The lake is full of trout, very large, rather well-fed and tame. There's golf and tennis, and horses, carriage rides, and all that. Until a few years ago, you had to leave your car at the bottom of the mountain and go up to the resort in a horse-drawn carriage, but now they let you drive up to the top. The resort has been owned by the Smiley family of Swarthmore for 150 years, and several of the Smileys are experts in botany, horticulture, display gardening, etc. Each season of the year has its attractions, in October it's fall foliage. Because of the Smiley family, the resort has always had a big Philadelphia following, with people going there as children and years later going in wheelchairs.

If you are into the Internet, you can take a look at the web page at www.Mohonk.com. Much better, just ask some old Philadelphia folks.

At one time, the big attraction was fresh food, right out of their own gardens. The supermarket has made fresh fruit and vegetables less of a novelty, and when everybody started going to Europe for vacations, the Mountain House sort of fell out of favor. But now they have got the idea of gourmet cooking, and they even serve wines of noble vintage. For distilled products, however, you are advised to stop in the liquor store in New Paltz, as you go past. If you just have to smoke, you maybe should stay home.

For driving directions, we advise going to www.maps.google.com, which has just about the best map arrangement you ever saw, including a satellite picture if you choose. It's 90 miles from New York City on the New York Thruway, and takes 2.5 hours from Philadelphia. You go up the New Jersey Turnpike and over to the Thruway, and the transition is the only difficult part. Bob Reinecke is the world's expert on which lane to get in at which point, and we'll try to get him to be explicit when it gets closer to October 14. When you think about it, it's perfectly remarkable that you could be in this Quaker mountain retreat when you within binoculars distance of the Empire State Building, and just a few miles from the Catskills.

So -- ask your wife, get approval, and then call for a reservation immediately.

My Yahoo

2005-02-11T15:38:00.000-08:00

Well, somehow you got here, so we won't give you instructions about that. We're going to lead you through some of the crevices of My Yahoo. For now, this will have to serve as the home page for the Right Angle Club of Philadelphia.

To get there, enter its URL (web address), in the place provided by your browser (remember, Firefox is preferred).

URL: www.my.yahoo.com

That will give you a generic entry screen for anybody's Yahoo web page, so you enter its particular name: rightangleclub

Then, you enter its password, which is 12331233
(The reason it has this password is our tradition of going in to lunch at 12:33 PM, and always having to be reminded twice.)

Then, check the box that asks you if you want your computer to remember. Yes, you do, because that will save you a little trouble, and you can go straight to the password.

Then, you will see our orange and black front page in all its glory. Orange and black were selected because our rosette is orange and black. I suspect that's because the Etherington brothers went to Princeton, but you'll have to ask them.

There's a lot of stuff on the screen, so look toward the upper right corner, where there is a calendar. Click on today's date, and you will get today's schedule, once you have linked up. You link up by going down a few lines where there is a box for you to enter your password, which is 12331233, remember? You won't see this box again, because this will trigger the computer to get the calendar for the current week, and keep it updated in that area. But it's only a week's worth, and if you want to look ahead for weeks and weeks, go down just a little where Yahoo calendar is underlined, and click it. This will give you a full year's calendar (for the Right Angle Club only, of course). You'll have to navigate around to see it all, because it's too big to fit on the screen all at once.

Just to the left of the Yahoo calendar link is the word Update, underlined. If you click on this, nothing much seems to happen. It's there in case you forgot to turn things off the last time you used it, and "today" is now some other day. Clicking Update brings it all into order.

If you want to know whether there's a luncheon on a particular date, or who the speaker is, go up higher to the calendar at the top of the page. Try Feb. 18, and you get that day's event.

We've tried to think of every way to remind you of what's going on, but there's no way we could figure out how to remind you to put your green nametag back in the box. Perhaps we could do that by sending out a Request for Proposals.

We'll tell you about other things on My.Yahoo.com some other time. There's lots to learn, particularly if you went to Princeton.

Introductory Sample

2005-02-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

(This entry will be removed after the Right Angle Club's Blog is established.)

Read-Only.
"Blog" is a slang term for Web Log. This one can be found on the Internet by typing in its name, which is: www.rightangleclub.blogspot.com (you better write that down, or enter it in your "favorites" file.
In this form, it is "read-only". You can also reach it by double-clicking the "link" , which is any words at all, signaled by being in a different colored type , underlined. Anybody in the whole world can read this blog, either by double-clicking a link, or by entering its full name in the space provided on your browser. We can change that later, if we need privacy.

Read and Write.
The corresponding secretary of the club, or some other person who has been given the secret password, can change or add to the Blog, by going to the (now Google-owned) website called www.Blogger.com. That won't do you much good, unless you know the password, however. As time goes by, more and more people will learn the password, and eventually some kid in Bulgaria will intrude into our space. At that point, we will have to get more vigorous about protection, but at the moment we are simply lost in a universe of 12 million blogs, where it is unlikely we will be discovered by chance for quite some time.

Comments.
There's one exception. Blogger allows you to check yes or no on permitting readers to send back comments to the "blog-master". We checked "yes", and (at the moment) welcome comments from the audience. However, we can check "no" at any moment, so watch your language. Although, come to think of it, most bloggers are about twenty years old, and you ought to see the language they use, and even the candid photos they sometimes include. Try clicking on the word "comment" at the bottom of the page.

Contents -- are up to you.

We're thinking of announcements, schedules, membership lists, programs, club history, minutes of the meetings -- or what you will. Comments, anyone?

Club Computing

2005-02-07T13:59:00.000-08:00

Most clubs, family groups, or neighborhood associations are held together by one loyal volunteer who does all the work. This limits the scope of the club to what one person is able to do in spare time. When that central person gets tired of it or moves away, things tend to fall apart. In the spirit of encouraging more volunteerism, this article suggests some ways the home computer can easily automate the normal drudgery of running a club. Having just performed this task for the local computer society, I can report it takes about two hours to put it together. If I did it three times, it would take forty-five minutes. A rank beginner, who doesn't even know what the words mean, might take all day to do it, but no more than that.

Most of the programs a club would need were first developed for people on the go, like a salesman who visits several cities, or a college student who commutes. It's an easy step to imagine different club members in different places instead of one person in several places. Electricity travels so fast that connecting computers together with the whole world's internet can be thought of as essentially all one big computer. For practical purposes, it doesn't matter whether a piece of information is in two parts of one computer or in two different computers hooked together by the internet. The whole process is so cheap it might just as well be free.

Selection of Computer and Operating System. Over ninety percent of the world's home computers are based on the Windows operating system, but Windows is having a lot of trouble right now with viruses and spam. Right now is Apple's big chance, because the Apple OS X operating system, based on Unix, seems to be immune to viruses and spam. So, if you are buying a new computer, I suggest you look at Apple's "headless" version. That's a little six-inch box to which you attach the monitor, keyboard and printer that presumably you have left over from some Windows system. Times will change, but right now this five hundred dollar little headless job is worth the money. That's for the club secretary; all the club members can use any kind of machine they happen to have, for "read-only" use.

Router. If you have several computers on one telephone line, you need a router to send the right signals to each machine. We suggest Linksys, made by Cisco. Because the router changes identification numbers every time it is restarted, it tends to foil the buccaneers out there who are trying to find your credit card. Therefore, it's not a bad idea to have a router attached, even if you only have it connected to a single computer. Security folks say it takes about fifteen minutes for some $#@! (pirate) to find a newly installed computer, and most banks get several hundred break-in attempts every hour. That's because everybody is getting automated these days, including criminals.

Choice of Browser. After you get set up and organized and all, you need to download the Firefox browser, which right now is faster and more spam-proof than either Internet Explorer or Netscape. Go to some other browser and enter www.firefox.com There's no harm in having several browsers sitting on your computer, including Opera if you like, but right now Firefox is the one to use. A browser, in case you care, is a program that takes a stream of internet data and translates it into the image on your screen, sort of like translating Morse code into a telegram. Some browsers are lean, mean and fast, while others are loaded with a lot of bells and whistles that slow them down. If you can't see any difference by trying them, go with the one that gives you most spam protection.

Yahoo Calendar. There are lots of computer calendars, but right now Yahoo offers one that is somewhat better for public use by clubs. For an illustration, take a look at the Philadelphia Orchestra calendar that can be located on Philadelphia Reflections in the lower left column, by first clicking the "Philadelphia Calendars" button, and then clicking the link to the Orchestra's schedule. Naturally, the Orchestra doesn't want people changing their public schedule, so the calendar is "read only". You can create a calendar like this for your club or organization by going to www.calendar.yahoo.com and entering an identifier and password. You can only change the calendar if you have the password, so be careful who is allowed to have it. If you make a misjudgment about this, just abandon the calendar and start a new one. You can of course create a personal calendar for yourself; it would be nice to merge your calendar with organization calendars. Calendar-merge programs do exist, but presently are a little primitive. Even nicer would be the ability to drag and drop individual events from one calendar to the other, but that's mostly on the wish list. The calendar for the Right Angle Club is at www.calendar.yahoo.com. The identification name is rightangleclub and the password is 12331233, because we traditionally go in to lunch at that time.

Yahoo Address Book. There are zillions of address books, but Yahoo provides a public one, if you allow club members to know the password. On the one hand, it's a big convenience for the secretary to have everybody fill in his own data. It can take ten or fifteen minutes apiece to complete all that information. On the other hand, if just anybody can have all this data, you can expect to get lots of unwanted solicitations. Naturally, you want to keep intruders from altering the data, but whether or not you make your membership list public is your own decision. So, probably you want to transfer the data to a list that you keep private, using a system of letting people enter data, and then erasing it after it is transferred.

Listserv. A very handy tool is to create a listserv, which is a system of e-mail that is sent to everyone on the list, and everyone can chime in with comments. It makes for a lot of local excitement, and it keeps families together, including reunion classes from all the schools you went to, 'way back then. If the Rs and the Ds get to bashing each other on the Listserv, you will learn the value of designating some sober soul to be list master, given the power to exile people whose mouths get too noisy.

Minutes and History as Blogs. Most clubs keep minutes, and after a while they start to record their history. It's a lot of work, and often gets lost; furthermore, it's hard for anyone but the author to read. Right Angle Club: www.rightangleclub.blogspot.com.

While there are a dozen programs and systems for creating blogs (that's short for "Web logs"), Google has bought www.blogger.com from that company, and has pepped it up quite a lot. Like the rest of these ideas, this one is free, and there are several million of these in existence. Sometimes people write poetry in the form of blogs, and some other people put up some pretty raunchy pictures or commentary. Apparently Google doesn't care, so they shouldn't mind if you publish the minutes of the East Whipswitch Cooking Society as blogs. It's very easy to do, and their canned "templates" produce some pretty elegant web sites in minutes. That's right, minutes in minutes.

Finances and Newsletters. Clubs typically collect dues or charge for luncheons, but financial stuff on the Internet is more complicated and must be dealt with in a later article. Similarly, you can publish a newsletter using RSS that is very spiffy indeed, but that's really hard to explain, and must be described in a separate article, too. Anyway, these preliminary items are enough to keep a new club busy for a few months.

Fast User Switching. Other operating systems will surely imitate it, but Apple is at present where you have to go to make a separate computer section for your club. Apple originally had the idea that several people would use the same machine, and want to keep their data secret from each other. So, they have a system in which you can click the upper right corner of the screen, and you can place yourself in a secret room with its own password. We suggest that it would be better to see this as a new desktop. All graphical interfaces of all computer operating systems use the metaphor of a desktop, which is what suggested to me that the club needs a desktop like my own. That is, it's littered with half-finished business of a dozen sorts, suddenly abandoned when the phone rings or a visitor arrives. You would like to be able to come back to your desktop and take up your work where you left off. For that, you probably need several desktops, and that's what fast user shifting provides you. Not vitally essential, but very convenient.

Favicons. Especially if you have fast user desktops specially designated by work topics instead of people, you can really use the favicon, or favorite icon, feature. A favicon is the little miniature do-hickey to the left of the webpage URL in the URL box. Maybe you never noticed it, but it's usually there. If you take your mouse and drag the favicon onto the desktop (you may have to shift something to create some blue sky desktop room) a new icon will appear on the desktop. Close up and click on that new icon, and you will open up a browser and go right to the page you were using when you created the icon. This is such a real neat feature that your desktop is apt to fill up quickly with a lot of web pages you happened to come across. It doesn't take long for the favicons to choke the desktop into uselessness, so this feature is at its best in a system where the topics of general utility to the user are sub-set by fast user switching.

Your Own Website. Apache. Your club will soon get the idea that you need your own website, but in fact you already have several of them. Your calendar, address book, club minutes blog, club history blog already add up to four websites. To most people, having their own website means consolidating all this material into one elegant page, with photos and artwork. You can do that, but it's much harder, and you first need to see if you really have a need for that.

If you do, and particularly if your club runs a little on the snooty side and highly prizes its privacy, you might want to consider going all the way and becoming your own internet provider. That brings us back to Apple, since the OS X system includes a free copy of Apache, the program for running your own site on your own computer. Now, that's really a big undertaking, far beyond the average club. So if privacy of that order is mandatory, you may have to hire someone to do it for you. But Apache sure makes it possible, if that's where you feel you want to go.

Newsletters

2005-02-06T13:52:00.000-08:00

Clubs like to have newsletters. If you have enough news to fill one, they are pretty easy to create and maintain. However, they are a little hard to explain, so stick with us as we build up the idea.

First, take a look at what you are trying to achieve, and a handy example would be www.my.yahoo.com. You will see it is not a daily or a weekly, it is continuous. The page of the newspaper is a montage of ten or twelve blocks on a page. For example, one block might give you the month's schedule, another shows the sports scores, another shows the stock market, etc. Each one of those blocks is probably updated at a different time, making this a continuous newsletter, and of course there is a way provided to individualize the blocks of space, change the color schemes, etc. Since this newsletter is on the internet, anyone can read it from anywhere in the world, at any time. That is, they can read it if they know the password, which some clubs want to keep private, and others prefer to skip because it is a nuisance when people forget what the password is.

What underlies this process is a technique known as RSS. Each block of space in the newspaper is operating on a different scheduling, and each blocks "polls" a donor site every so often, for example fifteen minutes. The polling program calls the URL of each donor site at a preset time, where a record is kept of the last time the site was modified. If the site has been changed since that last visit of the polling program, the new site is downloaded to the newsletter page. If there has been no change, the polling program simply goes on to the next-scheduled site. In effect, the polling program is acting as a "robot". Modifications of this system, with considerable elaboration, are at the heart of the Google robot and other robots for other purposes. Generally speaking, the ordinary user doesn't have to know how to construct one of these robots, or modify one. No doubt, there will be extensive elaboration of this concept in the near future, but that's essentially how you can construct a usable newsletter in short order.