When I first visited the official site at the start of this, my first year of membership, I was impressed with the fine job that Ray Smith did in putting it together, but quickly recognized a severe deficiency when it shut down after I tried to view all of the images in the Float Fly section. I quickly realized that the reason for this shutdown was the fact that it is a free site hosted by Yahoo-Geocities, and, as such, suffers from limited storage space and bandwith. To put it simply, if too many visitors try to view too many pictures, a limit is exceeded and the site will be shut down until it recycles at the end of the month. Penalized for having a good, regularly-visited website?! Rats!

Having previous experience in building and maintaing websites, I thought it would be beneficial to the club to offer my services in upgrading its capabilitites beyond the meager Yahoo-Geocities feature set and assets. I saw a rich opportunity for multimedia content, such as video clips, but storage and presentation of those on a level that goes beyond what is provided by a free service. And so, I've donated my time and some server space to make this auxiliary site a reality.

Not for Everybody!
Now, for the problems. Increasing sophistication portends more problems and complaints about things that don't work. We have a 'mature' membership, with a lot of retirees. Some in our generation don't have computers, or may even hate hate 'em with a passion. Some may have aging hardware or use a browser that doesn't cope well with newer, resource-intensive multimedia content. The bottom line is, some things found on this website won't work for some people. And those people will not be catered-to -- this site will not target the lowest common denominator. Those who fall into that category are better off restricting their visits to the main site, which is far more 'aging techonology-friendly.'

But Will It Work for Me?
It doesn't mean that the site has unrealistic hardware requirements. Any processor faster than 1Ghz or so, running Windows XP or Vista and a recent version of the Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator or Opera browsers should do well. Dial-up users probably won't have much luck -- DSL or cable broadband is highly recommended. And your browser will need the Flash plugin to display the videos, and Adobe Reader or equivalent to view and print PDF documents. Most important - you must have javascript enabled. If something doesn't work for you and you have javascript disabled, don't complain to me!

Display resolution is also important. I have developed these pages to perform best on 1024 x 768dpi and true color. They should also do well with minimal horizontal scrolling at 800 x 600dpi, but I've not personally verified it. I've done my best to be inclusive, but there are some things that simply are too demanding for older hardware and software, and those who are using ancient computers and older operating systems will just have to lose out. Sorry.

So that's why we're here and what this site is all about. Hope you enjoy it!

Best regards,
Chuck Brillowsky