What's Happening

From the desk of your Secretary

JULY 22/04 - Hi all, been having a little computer problem again. Think somebody sent me a virus. Look what it did to my mouse.  And by-the-way - If a man is standing in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him - is he still wrong?  Cecil

JULY 19/04 -  Corey Downey, your e-mail address is no longer or it is refusing ECI messages. Please get in touch if you have a new address. Thanks, Cecil.

JULY 15/04 - As of today the Missus has put up with me for 38 years. I sent her a sympathy card. The sad thing is she accepted it in complete agreement.

- A lot is happening in ECI, our newsletter made it out early this quarter and an Editor has signed on starting the next quarter (watch for the official e-mail announcement soon). Jerry Ferrell #93 has added several new State check lists and Mike Macuga #23 has agreed to manage the Maine and Rhode Island lists. There are 16 more States and Canada left to do. Some of the lists have a meager start and more needs to be done. Also too many lists lack a manager to help Jerry keep them updated. Tom Cain, Jr. #28 has updated several Topics list and has added new photos to his photo essays. If you haven't visited the What Is It? page and the Show Case galleries in a while take time to do so, dozens of new pictures have been added in the past month.

I may have found out why we don't have any members from Alaska.

JUNE 21/04 -  The Associated Collectors of Encased is no longer. Founder and The Casement editor, Jerry Binsfeld, has refunded A.C.E. members their unused dues and returned un-cashed checks and money orders held by Binsfeld  since 2003. Issue #29 of The Casement will not be forthcoming. "I must apologize to all A.C.E members for not getting out issue 29 or for not answering email." Binsfeld further apologized saying, "And finally, sorry again for the delay, I never had any intentions of keeping anyone's money." 

-"It is a great pity to see A.C.E. end as it has and I mourn the fact that it did not have to die like this. Had Binsfeld been upfront with 'all' the members from the start, I am sure someone would had taken over the reins and kept it going. He didn't, its dead.... My opinion.....Cecil"

JUNE 19/04 - Well, I've been a tad lazy with updating this page - gotta mow the yard you know - anyway we have kicked off the first edition of the ECI Newsletter this month and have added a new feature to the 'Member's' page. The newsletter can be accessed from the 'Site Features' page. We are in need of a volunteer Editor to keep it going and news items or articles from the membership so we have something to put into it. If there is not any interest in supporting the newsletter it will not be continued.

-It has been reported that when ECI Check Lists are printed from the website the alignment may be off. This will happen in some cases because websites self adjust automatically to fit whatever size monitor it is viewed on. When WebPages are printed there is NO automatic adjustment and if the material being viewed requires some scrolling from side to side, even ever so slightly, this will cause a printing problem for lists since the printer has to allow for a larger area to be printed on a smaller surface thus misalignment to occurs. In some cases if the printer is set to print in the 'Landscape' mode, misalignment may not occur. This is not a true in every case since different computers and printers work differently.

-Members with a personal or personally owned business website, can now promote their site on ECI. A link has been added near the top of the 'Members' page that when clicked brings up the listing. So far, 11 members have posted links to their sites.

-A major milestone was reached today with the registration of our 100th member - Mr. Paul Geldmacher of California. Paul's joining has put California at the top with the most members - 8, with West Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania tied for second  with 7 members each.

-There are additions made to our website about everyday, new State & Topics listings  and scads of photos in the Show Case. I want to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of you who takes the time to contribute to   making the ECI site what is today.

-Please report typos and other corrections that need to made to the Check Lists when found. With the amount of material being handled, mistakes are inevitable and try as we do, we won't catch them all. We want everything to be accurate and sometimes we are working from faulty information unknowingly, so every sharp eye is a must. A SPECIAL thanks to Ray Lockwood #4 for volunteering to manage the Indiana State Check List. Managers are needed for several State List that Jerry has posted.

It may take me a little longer keeping the ECI website up-to-date. Been having some equipment problems lately.

MAY 24/04 - Your computer can be infected by programs called adware (unsolicited advertising) and spyware (recording your surfing activity to sell your information's). Those programs come from many sources, WebPages can make you install them unknowingly, or popular software's like Kazaa can install them onto your computer. Now the good news; I have something for you and its totally free. I found a software called spybot, search and destroy and you can download it for free at download.com.

-Spybot Search and Destroy 1.3 is free and doesn't require you to provide an e-mail address, plus it does an excellent job wiping your system clean of spyware and adware. Of the antispyware software I've tested, Spybot was the best, finding every possible pest in my tests. Its default mode is easy to use and perfect for home users; its advanced mode offers features that will please most high-end users. Spybot has wide international appeal, with its support of more than 30 different languages, and it remains available as a free download. 

-After downloading the 3.5MB file, installation is smooth. Simply select your language preference, and you're ready to go. Spybot has an easy-to-use interface: From the main window, you can scan your system for spyware, update the program, and recover your system to a previous state, if needed, thanks to the backup copies that Search and Destroy makes of everything it changes. A highly configurable advanced-mode interface is available for power users who like to schedule their scans, manage cookies, add skins, and even customize Spybot's operation, such as deciding whether to launch at start, to log files, or to display warnings.

-Like all antispyware applications, Spybot scans your computer's active memory and hard drive for pesky programs that add unwanted advertising or track your online moves. In my informal tests, Spybot performed the most thorough job of finding and removing these pests. For example, Spybot is the only spyware-cleansing program I tested that detected other antispyware programs installed on my system, and it properly warned me about false-positive results caused by running multiple antispyware programs. (Files quarantined by one antispyware app remain on your hard drive and could be viewed by a second antispyware app as potential threats, although they are not.)   Cecil

MAY 01/04 - To those ECI members who also belong to A.C.E. there is still no news coming from Wisconsin. Three months will have lapsed by mid May since it was said that Jerry Binsfeld was to publish the last installment of The Encasement. Well, to the best of my knowledge issue #29 has not been mailed. The A.C.E. website has been taken down. If anyone has any current information about A.C.E. please let us know.

- ATTENTION Joe Etherington #56 - ECI e-mails being sent to you are bouncing back. Please contact us so we can clear up the problem.

- There are still some members having issues browsing this site. It is a fact that JAVA must be installed and working properly to trigger all the applets being used. The vast majority of our members have no problem browsing the site and for those that do all I can do is express my regrets. There is a lot more that I don't know about these wonderful contraptions than the little I do. There is something that you can check on - In the 'Control Panel' there  are settings in 'Internet Options' under the 'Advanced' tab. Make sure these features are checked. WIN 98 1) "JIT compiler for virtual machine enabled" and "JAVA console enabled" WIN XP 1) "Use JAVA 2v1_02 for (applet)" and "JIT compiler for virtual machine enabled" must be checked. MAC users will probably never be able to browse the site until either Microsoft or Apple cut out their competitive crap and allow codes that will enable sites designed with FrontPage to be browsed. Same goes for all non-IE browsers.