Maintaining a community net in today's cut-throat commercial Internet Provider climate is no easy task; in 1997 there were enough community nets in Nova Scotia to hold a conference with representatives from all regions of the province. Today, Chebucto Community Net is the sole survivor, one of only eight community nets left in Canada.
Chebucto Community Net has helped tens of thousands of people and their families get online, provided web access to hundreds of community groups and small businesses and was the first online home for most of Halifax's major institutions including the City of Halifax, the Public Library System and Metro Transit, where a volunteer-built database provided accurate route information years in advance of Go-Time.
A lot of people both in public view and behind the scenes have kept
Chebucto Community Net working to provide access to those people left
behind by the ever-growing Digital Divide over the years. We celebrate
their - and all of our - achievements and look forward to the future.
The traditional Internet uses the IPv4 protocol for all computers to communicate. In recent years the number of available IPv4 addresses has dropped as more and more computers have connected to the Internet. The solution is called IPv6, which has many, many more addresses. As time goes by, more and more of the Internet will move to the IPv6 protocol.
Chebucto plans to start using the IPv6 addresses in the near future, a
change that should be completely transparent to end users.
The Twitter feed to bookmark is:
http://twitter.com/ChebuctoCommNet
Chebucto users are warned that there are email scams where users are asked
for their passwords and other personal information. No matter whom the
email says it is from or why they say they need the information, these
emails are always a lie. Real organizations do not require you to send
them confidential personal information over email. For more information on
these sorts of scams, tips to help you recognize these scams and resources
to help you find out more, see this Mousepad
column about spear-phishing, yet another in a long line of
scams through email designed to snag the unwary.
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.
Web browser: Mozilla Firefox free from Mozilla.com
Email client: Mozilla Thunderbird free from Mozilla.com
All-in-one web browser, email client,
web page editor: Mozilla
SeaMonkey free from
Seamonkey-project.org
Free anti-virus programs for home users
(Note that both of the following free anti-virus programs also have paid versions which offer additional features):
Anti-Spyware Software:
FTP and SFTP Software: FileZilla free Client Version from Filezilla-project.org
RSS Newsfeed Reader: RSSOwl free from RSSOwl.Org
SSH Client: Putty free from Simon Tatham
Security Tools and Software:
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 3 installed and Windows Vista 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.
Go to the Beacon
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