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Updated: 30 April 2007

Good crowd for Chebucto AGM!

[Photo: AGM well attended] About fifty people came out for the Chebucto Community Net Society's 13th Annual General Meeting. Reports from the Chair and the Board indicated that 2007 will likely be a make-or-break year for the Chebucto Community Net. Declining revenue and membership numbers are hurting but even with fewer resources, Chebucto services are improving in quality and development of new services continues.

A great deal of hope is pinned on the development of Chebucto's Wifi service generating public interest in our community-run non-profit internet access.

Chebucto Vice-Chair and head of the Chebucto Technical Committee Ed Dyer completed his two year term on the Board of Directors and re-offered for another, as did Directors Richard Connolly, Bill Matheson, Kent Murray and John McKay. Long-time Chebucto member Mary Rigby was elected to the Board by acclamation. Another nominee turned out not to be eligible to run.

Treasurer Marni Tuttle completed her two year term as a Director. Chebucto Secretary Heather Townsend resigned from the Board after serving one year of her two year term. With Tom Daly's resignation from the Board last year two Board positions are currently vacant, each with one year of a two year term left to run.

Long-time volunteer and Board member John McKay was honoured by Chair Bernie Hart for all his hours of volunteer time working for Chebucto.

A Special Resolution to amend Chebucto's By-Laws by adding a new position of Past Chair to the Chebucto Executive Committee passed with the necessary three-fourths of votes. Once approved by the N.S. Registrar of Joint Stocks the changed by-laws will be in effect.

Members were asked to break into groups and discuss different strategies for Chebucto for the new year. Reports from the various groups will be reviewed at the next Board meeting.

Large mailboxes working perfectly!

More than a month after Chebucto mailboxes got a large bump in capacity and speed after moving to a new powerful server, reports of mail system trouble are almost non-existent. Mailboxes can now be accessed multiple ways at the same time without problem and mailbox capacity is no longer an issue. As well by giving all users a JUNKMAIL folder and making it maintenance free with automated deletion after 30 days, users don't miss out on mail filtered in error. Automated renewal notices are no longer bounced from full mailboxes as well.

With these changes Chebucto Community Net mail is world class: we offer secure encrypted email access, no advertising or data mining of your email, large mail folders with spam filtering, virus filtering and phishing (scam email) protection on all incoming email as well as being securely physically hosted right here in Halifax, Nova Scotia under Canadian privacy laws.

Email can be accessed securely from anywhere in the world through our Webmail service, through IMAP and POP3 with both TLS and SSL encryption available, and through our text service using telnet and secure encrypted SSH2.

Chebucto wifi development ongoing

[Photo: Johnathan Thibodeau and his new directional antenna.] Development work continues on the Chebucto Wireless service. Physical installation of equipment at Fenwick Place is next on the agenda, likely late this week if weather permits.

Chebucto staff members and the Chebucto Board are eager to get the first area chosen for wireless access online.

The Chebucto Community Net plans to bring non-profit high-speed Internet to the metro Halifax area by building a mesh network of wireless nodes hosted by users themselves.

Currently in active development, Chebucto's plan would offer free public access to local metro and government websites and full Internet access to Chebucto Plus level memberships, currently $100 per year for individuals.

The areas to be served by the new wireless access will be determined by the residents of metro themselves.

Chebucto is looking for residents able to host wireless nodes, the cornerstone of the network, and when we get enough nodes in a neighbourhood, we can look at bringing network access where it is needed. A node sign-up form is online here.

Chebucto's project was the cover story of The Coast's August 3, 2006 issue. It was first announced to members at the Annual General Meeting this past April.

Text service dialup soon to go 56K!

Users of the Chebucto text-only dialup service should see an increase in connection speed over the next few weeks as the text service modems are upgraded to 56K from the current 33.6K. In testing, the only difference other than the increased connection speed seems to be that some terminal programs may need to hit Enter or Return an extra time when logging in.

Help promote Chebucto!

We invite our members and supporters to help promote the Chebucto Community Net in the community by printing off and distributing Chebucto brochures and posters from our website.

We have added a new brochure for promoting our new wireless service in your neighbourhood.

Chebucto services maintenance window

The Chebucto Technical Committee wishes to advise Chebucto users of upcoming regularly scheduled planned maintenance downtimes. Chebucto Community Net services may be unavailable between 3:30 AM and 4:30 AM Tuesdays to allow for system upgrades. Some or all Chebucto services may go down with minimum or no warning during this maintenance window as systems are shut down and restarted.

Chebucto Community Net RSS how-to guide

Chebucto Community Net has posted a guide on how to use our RSS news feed here: chebucto.ca/rss/

Our RSS feed is our way of letting people know fast about important software updates and security alerts as well as new developments at Chebucto. Stay informed with the news as soon as we have it ourselves with our RSS news feed.

Updated - Recommended software list

With the recent interest in Internet security and the rise in various exploits meant to take over user machines, the Chebucto Office has compiled this list of recommended software for user computers running Microsoft Windows.

Web browser: Mozilla Firefox free from Mozilla.org
Upgraded to version 2.0.0.3.

Email client: Mozilla Thunderbird free from Mozilla.org
Upgraded to version 2.0.0.0.

Anti-Spyware Software:

Firewall: Zone Alarm free and paid versions from Zonelabs.com

Free anti-virus programs for home users (Note that both of these programs also have paid versions which offer additional features):

FTP Software: FileZilla free from FileZilla.SourceForge.net

RSS Newsfeed Reader: RSSOwl free from RSSOwl.Org

SSH Client: Putty free from Simon Tatham

The Chebucto Office does not recommend using the Internet Explorer web browser for any use except for accessing Microsoft's own Windows Update page. The popular web browser has been repeatedly successfully targetted by virus writers in particular seeking to break into home computers to use them for criminal purposes such as sending out spam, sending out viruses to break into other computers and being used to disrupt services on other computer systems.

After many reports about vulnerabilities for 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.

Keeping Microsoft Windows up to date is also very important. Windows XP users should have Service Pack 2 installed. All Microsoft Windows users should make a point of using Internet Explorer to visit the Microsoft Windows Update site at least once a month and download all critical updates.

Cool Chebucto hats available!

[Photo: Cool Chebucto hat - click to see larger photo] We have available these excellent quality Chebucto Community Net hats. Click on photo to see larger version. These fashionable stone coloured washed cotton Chino twill hats are low fitting with adjustable strap and antique silver ring buckle for a perfect fit and are embroidered with the Chebucto Community Net logo and web address. Machine washable and drip dry with a pre curved peak, this hat will provide years of comfortable wear as well as showing your support for Halifax's own one-of-a-kind independent Community Net.

You can get your very own Chebucto Community Net hat from the Chebucto office for $20 or we can mail it out to you for an additional $10.


 

 

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