Error extruding loop selection along individual face normals How do I extrude a face loop selection along face normals?

To grasp the problem, take a convex shape such as the back of a satellite dish.
If you would like to see in what direction that I would like this face loop to extrude then turn on Face Normals (Properties Panel>Mesh Display>Normals>Display Face Normals as Lines) 

If I individually select each face and extrude it with the same value I can get the effect that I desire, but it then requires cleanup to delete all extraneous faces on the ends of each extrusion and then the vertices must all be selectively merged at center. This takes an unbelievable amount of time to do. I have not been able to find any combination of Transform Orientation or Extrusion settings (or using Alt+S) that will extrude a face loop in the direction of the individual face normals.

What options if any will perform this operation more quickly than what I am doing?
The normals on your object are not correct because the object is rotated 90 degrees in object mode.
To fix select your object, press CtrlA and Apply Rotation and Scale. Then your normals will work for the extrusion operation you want to do.





read: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/Manual/3D_interaction/Transform_Control/Reset_Object_Transformations and http://blenderartists.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-106188.html