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Updated: 6 February
2003
56 K upgrade feedback!
The new Chebucto Plus 56 K dialup
service operational since January 14 has proven to be a big success
with Chebucto members. Logins to the service have increased and January
saw a record number of new and renewing Sustaining members.
Chebucto now offers the fastest dialup speed possible to our members over
our all new digital phone lines and equipment.
Chebucto Community Net has been offering graphical access dialup service
since November 1998 and text-based access since June 1994.
There have been few members reporting connection problems; out of
approximately 720 Chebucto Plus
accounts in use, there have been reports from a half dozen
Windows 3.1 users unable to upgrade their dialers on their own, five
Macintosh users unable to make good connections to the service and about
twenty Windows 95/98/Me users reporting connection issues. The Chebucto
Technical Committee and Chebucto Office are still actively investigating
solutions to the problems. Of the recent Windows systems examined, new
modem drivers and in a couple of cases new modems solved the problem. Many
PC modems require driver updates, particularly those made more than a year
or two ago. Macintosh connection solutions appear to be based in the
internet connection settings. Some Macintosh users have reported altering
connection settings and resolving the connection problems. The new Chebucto Plus 56 K service requires PAP
(Password Authentication Protocol) to be used. As solutions are found they
will be posted to the Chebucto Plus documentation website.
New Chebucto Newspaper Column!
The January 26 Sunday Chronicle Herald saw the first edition of a new
bi-weekly column - The
Chebucto Mousepad, written by Chebucto's Internal Committee Chair
Mark Alberstat. The column will focus on computers and internet
technologies and how they can be used by people for an almost infinite
variety of purposes. People can write in questions to the column and if
they
are used they will get a new Chebucto Community Net mousepad. Email
questions to the Mousepad at mousepad@chebucto.ns.ca
Look for the next Chebucto Mousepad column in Sunday February
9th's Sunday Herald both in paper
and online editions. It will appear every second Sunday.
New mailing list management tool
MajorCool!
Neighbourhood account holders and others running mailing lists on Chebucto
will be excited to hear that there is now an easy-to-use graphical access
mailing list management tool. List-owners can check out our new MajorCool graphical
interface to majordomo. The point and click interface makes managing a
Chebucto mailing list child's play and includes help documentation.
Chebucto Board Member resigns
Mark Rushton, former Chair of the Internal and Volunteer Committees on
Chebucto, has resigned from the Chebucto Community Net Society Board of
Directors. First elected to the Board in April 2000, he was re-elected
in April 2002 for a second two year term but increasingly found his
travels made serving on the Board difficult. While his presence on the
Chebucto Board will be sorely missed, Mark has said that he wishes to
continue to stay in touch as a volunteer for new Chebucto projects in
development.
Praise for Chebucto from
Saskatchewan
In the latest edition of the Regina Saskatchewan based Great Plains
Free Net Commons is
the following quote:
Canada's premier Free Net is the Chebucto Community Net of Halifax, Nova
Scotia. This dynamic organization is the model of what an organization can
do to bring online access to its community. Their software and technical
development is the benchmark for all Free Nets! Take a look!
We would like to respond that we are honored by such kind words and
recommend the Great Plains Free Net to
anyone needing Regina-based community net services. Community Nets, or
Free Nets as we are sometimes called, play an important role in the
development of internet skills in a community and provide an online home
for groups and individuals who may not otherwise be able to have one,
among many other things.
Chebucto now accepts four credit
cards
Chebucto can now accept payment by holders of Visa, MasterCard, American
Express and Discover credit cards. Previous to this, only Visa cards could
be accepted and processed. A recent switch in credit card processing
services has proven far more versatile and Chebucto is paying a
substantially lower processing fee than before.
Alert: More Windows
updates
Chebucto advises all users of the Windows Operating System to keep updated
with the latest security updates from Microsoft. There are major security
holes in the Microsoft Windows Operating System, Microsoft's Internet
Explorer web browser and Microsoft's Outlook Express email program which
can be fixed with software patches from Microsoft's Windows Update site.
Unpatched versions of these Microsoft products are vulnerable to many
viruses, worms, trojan programs and exploits where hostile users can get
access to your computer and files. Users are advised to keep current with
Service Packs and Critical Updates for Microsoft products.
Chebucto Users still tops in *.NS.CA
SETI processing
SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, has been processing
their radio telescope data with home users' computers for years now. Using
an innovative
screensaver which runs whenever the user computer is not in use, SETI
has had more than 1,320,000 years of high quality computer processor time
donated to it.
Of all the computer domains ending in the letters NS.CA, denoting Nova
Scotia, chebucto.ns.ca now ranks
number one, beating out both the government of Nova Scotia and the vast
resources of EdNet, the schools network. Current stats here.
Chebucto users have sent in more than 17,900 results, representing more
than 38 years of CPU time that would otherwise have been wasted.
Outlook user email advisory
After the continuing wave of viruses specifically targetting users of
Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express email programs, and the constant
stream of user complaints about randomly altered program settings and
difficulty using the program, the Chebucto Community Net Office and the
Chebucto Technical Committee recommend our users do not use either Outlook
or Outlook Express as their email program.
Windows Users can find a selection of email programs available for
download
here and Macintosh
users can find a selection of email programs
here.
Go to the Beacon
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