For those in the United States, we would like to say have a very safe and
happy Labor Day weekend.


A WARM WELCOME

At this time I would like to welcome the 140 new volunteers that signed up
during the month of August, and hope you enjoy being a volunteer as many
of those people who have been around for awhile.  The staff doesn't ask
too much out of volunteers, just keep us posted on any changes you may
have by going to http://www.raogk.org/change.html instead of writing to us
directly. Also, as always, please be sure to acknowledge receipt of a
request, whether you can fulfill what is requested or not.


KUDO's GO OUT TO MANY

Our "Thank you for being a Volunteer" area
(http://www.raogk.org/guestbook/) is filling up with very happy campers
who have used our site and received superb services by you folks.  It is
really heart warming to read how people helping people really works.

NOTE: This area is NOT a place to post queries. If you should go to the
guestbook and see a query, please do not take it upon yourself to try and
fulfill it. The query will be removed as soon as I receive a message that
indicates a query has been posted. Sometimes the removal takes place
almost immediately, and at other times it may take a few hours.


A PERSONAL THANK YOU

In last month's newsletter I had indicated that we were in a bit of a
financial bind. My husband and I had been footing the expenses to keep
Random Acts online, but could not do so much longer without support. Your
response to my plea was greatly appreciated, and those that sent in a
contribution kept us going. We are not totally out of the woods yet, and
if you missed out on last month's newsletter or did not have the chance to
contribute yet and would like to, you can do so by visiting
http://www.raogk.org/support.html

I would like to create a web page that will list the names of those who
have helped support RAOGK. If you have contributed funds, and would NOT
like to appear on the page please send me a message letting me know this
(send message to raogk@raogk.org).

If you would like to buy business cards, which help support RAOGK, you can
order them by going to http://www.raogk.org/business.html

If you would like to have any type of web service (from hosting a website
to creating and maintaining a website, to needing a mailing list) we have
such services available.  Visit http://www.maddoc.net/ to check what we
have to offer.


POWER OUTAGE

The early morning hours of August 17th, our lights flickered a few times,
and then went out altogether. Our uninterruptible power supplies only last
about an hour if no monitors are being used, and usually any outages we
have last up to 30 minutes. This time, it lasted for 6 hours. If you
visited the RAOGK website in the early morning hours (central daylight
time) on that date and couldn't reach us, here's the reason why.


THE TALLY IS IN

We asked you last month to vote on whether you would like an area on RAOGK
where you can upload pictures you have taken as an act of kindness so the
requester could download them. We had 96 voters, 2 indicated they would
not like to see this feature on the site. We are busy testing out
different software to find the most "user friendly" one we can find. All
of the software used on our site is of the "Open Source" variety, easily
scalable, and best of all FREE. However, I have found, that most of the
programmers who put this software together are "geeks" and "user friendly"
sometimes doesn't seem to cross their minds. We hope to get this area
online by the end of September.


FREE E-MAIL ACCOUNTS

In the newsletter sent out in May, we mentioned the fact that free
web-based e-mail accounts carry some restrictions on storage. A friend of
mine who has an account with MSN was having problems and she called the
toll free number and found out the following. You may find some of their
rules could apply to other free web-based e-mail servers as well.

"I have once again talked with MSN tech support about missing
MSN mail and learned more about their new policies *and*
how glitches can occur. Perhaps your subscribers would benefit
if you save this and use it to inform them.

MSN Hotmail accounts (free);
*must be accessed at least once every 30 days or lose it
*all Sent, Saved, and mail in your Inbox, counts against total 
usable size of the account. Mail will bounce if you don't move
or delete your Saved and Sent files as well as your Inbox.
*all Sent mail is deleted after 30 days
*failure to reduce the size of stored mail after receiving a warning
notice will cause the account to be frozen and mail to bounce."