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Updated: 4 September 2013

Chebucto turned 19!

Chebucto Community Net, the oldest running Internet Service Provider in Nova Scotia and the second oldest Community Net in Canada, turned 19 on June 24th.

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.

Chebucto gets IPv6 addresses

Thanks to its membership in ACORN-NS, Chebucto Community Net has been given its own range of IPv6 addresses to work with. Chebucto's range is 2001:410:a002::/48 a block containing over 35 trillion network addresses. By comparison, Chebucto's previous IPv4 block contained about 250 available addresses.

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.

Chebucto now on Twitter

As you can see from the top of the live News page, Chebucto has joined Twitter and entered the age of Social Media. The Twitter feed is a way to communicate news and points of interest to a wide audience in a timely fashion as well as giving Chebucto a way to reach members at those very rare times when Chebucto web services aren't available.

The Twitter feed to bookmark is:

http://twitter.com/ChebuctoCommNet

Scam Alert!

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.

Help promote Chebucto!

We need your help. 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.

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.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.


 

 

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