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Announcing the ICUFR Chairman 2019-21
The Board of the ICUFR is pleased to announce that Rtn James Kalassery, RC Cochin Sunrise, D3201, India will be Chairman of the International Computer Users Fellowship of Rotary for the term: July 2019 to June 2021.
Rtn James came into the Rotary family in 1973 as the Charter President of Rotaract Club of Cochin East, which celebrated its 45th year in 2018. This club is one of the oldest surviving Rotaract clubs in the world. He held various positions in Rotaract including District Secretary in 1973 and became the District Rotaract Representative (DRR) of the then RI District 320 in 1977-78.
He joined the Rotary Club of Cochin Midtown in 1989. There he held various posts and became its Secretary in 1991-92 and President in 1992-93. He has also held various district level positions, under various Governors, starting with the District Directory Publisher of PDG BR Ajit in 1992-93. He was the first District Rotaract Chair of District 3201 in 2008-09 and was instrumental in doubling the number of Rotaract clubs in the district from 22 to 44, together with the then DRR Rtr R Kishore.
James has been serving as the District WebMaster for the last 9 consecutive years with all Governors, from 2004-2013, in Districts 3200 and 3201. Rtn James was also the Webmaster for PRIP Kalyan Banerjee in 2011-13. Rtn James had been a faculty for many RYLAs, COTS, PETS, DOTS and District Assemblies.
A more detailed biography can be viewed or downloaded from here: James Kalassery Biography .
The other Officers for 2019-21 will be as follows:
- Immediate Past Chairman: Rtn Moritz von Eckardstein, RC Bad Salzuflen, D1900, Germany
- Secretary: Rtn Jawad Shami, RC Islamabad Downtown, D3272, Pakistan
- Treasurer: Rtn Roger Siddle, RC Kendal, D1190, UK
Control the Windows 10 upgrade process
Are you still using W7 or W8.1, and do NOT want to go to W10, at least in the near future? If so you may like to investigate a free program that will stop Microsoft automatically installing the upgrade, and control the constant downloads that MS will continue to send.
For background on the problem, open and read this Techradar article and maybe google 'GWX Control Panel' for the latest situation.
If you then want to check or use the 'Mayfield' program mentioned in that article, go to https://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/ and click on: GWX Control Panel (formerly GWX Stopper). It is free, with donations if one likes the program. Check it out yourself, but if you want to manage Microsoft's overly enthusiastic attempts to get you to upgrade to W10 this could be just what you need.
A free local web server on your PC
Web sites have moved on from a collection of pages to complex systems that store pieces of web text in a database, organise graphics in separate folders, and serve up pages on demand with scripts and programming tags. These content management systems (CMS) have matured into off-the-shelf packages and there are a number of free, community supported packages that you can download and try for yourself.
The problem is finding a web server to try them out on. Typically they need a fully configured Apache server, MySQL database and the PHP programming system. Rather surprisingly you don’t need to rent an internet server. This article will help you set up a free, local web server on your PC or laptop using a package called XAMPP that you can use to try out Joomla and similar CMS web sites.
You don’t need any technical knowledge to set it up so let’s get started. Go to - https://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html and click on the version for your machine. XAMPP is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris. It provides a full web server installation in a single directory that will serve pages for you to browse with your usual web browser. It is the ideal way to develop and test a web site at home. It is designed for ease of use with minimal hassle – so there are no passwords. Do NOT use it as a live system on the net!
The Maine Event - ICUFR Conference 2014
Review by Rtn Manon Lennon
ICUFR member and PRID Dan Mooers offered to host and planned the 2014 ICUFR conference in Portland, Maine.
My husband Patrick Poupart, Founding president of the RC of Laval Rive-Nord, Quebec Canada and I, Manon Lennon, D7040 PolioPlus Committee Chair attended this ICUFR event (our first) and were both very impressed by the quality of this conference and other ICUFR members we met from England, Nova Scotia, Iowa, Georgia USA, Maine, and New York, all great folks.. Everything was well over and above our expectations.
The conference was held at the Fireside Inn and Suites, 81 Riverside Street, Portland, Maine and it began on Thursday, September 25, 2014 at 5:30 PM with a Welcoming BBQ/Cook-out at the home of Shirley and Dan Mooers, who also provided return transportation between the hotel and their home in South Portland.
Every morning, after breakfast, our group retreated to the meeting room to catch up with ‘Friends and Fun’ before listening to the great speakers that Dan had arranged for us.
The Benefits Of Desktop Virtualisation
This article is about desktop virtualisation - running your own personal cloud computing environment at home. I've found it easier to describe how to do it than to explain why you would want to. It may help if I set out my problems and how virtualisation has solved them.
Over the years computers accumulated under my desk at home. A Windows Home Server (WHS) streamed music around the house and backed up my home network. It had recovered my wife's PC following a hard disk failure so that box was essential. A Linux system backed up the ICUFR and other web sites on my internet server and ran an IMAP mail server. My old office laptop running XP had Quickbooks, Garmin maps and a few other applications that I needed from time to time. And finally there was my main machine - originally XP but now upgraded to Windows 7.
All three PC's and the laptop were wired into a 4 port KVM switch which let me switch the keyboard, mouse and monitor between them. At least two and usually three were always on. They kept my electricity bills high, contributed to global warming and were very noisy.