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Updated: 6 February 2003

Message Of The Day Chebucto News Archive

56 K upgrade feedback!

Chebucto Plus 56 K logo 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.


 

 

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