February 2005 Newsletter IMPORTANT!!! 0. Technical Updates 1. Filtered Web Browsing 2. New Referral Program 3. Billing Methods 4. Anniversary News 5. New Midcoast Educational Learning Opportunities 6. Scholarship Information 7. Congratulations December & January Prize Winners 8. Congratulations to One of Our Own 9. New Employee 0. Technical Updates This has been a pretty busy winter for technical changes. In between snow storms and deep freezes, the wireless staff have upgraded some of our repeater sites for more speed. These include downtown Rockport and Glen Cove. Platinum service was previously only available from Owls Head, Ragged, and Waldoboro. Now we've added the Courthouse and Benner Hill in Rockland to that list. We also have added a repeater to provide better coverage along Route 90 in West Rockport. This provides non line-of-sight service to customers who don't have a view of Ragged and were previously unable to get service. We are also working hard at more locations for providing our service and will share the news when they are working. The quickest notification will be via our System and Tech Notices, and then we will announce it in a regularly scheduled upcoming newsletter. All of our email servers have been upgraded to the latest versions of Spam Assassin and antivirus software. This antivirus software also removes some phishing emails. If you've read about phishing but haven't received such emails, credit is due to Spam Assassin and our antivirus software. Phishing is a form of deception (called social engineering in geekspeek) where criminals pretend to be a legitimate organization (such as a popular bank or ebay) and ask for your credit card numbers or names and passwords via email. We also suspect you will start to notice a drop in investment related spam too. Controlling spam is an ongoing technical process and we make small improvements all the time. We now offer DSL (and wireless) in the Clary Hill (Union) area. This area had not previously been served by DSL. If you are in the Verizon areas and are curious if DSL is available, our staff can do an instant check for you while you are on the phone with us. The web hosting bundle with all business broadband services is working well. Any business with a MIS broadband connection, whether wireless, DSL, or ethernet, has our basic webhosting service included with the broadband service at no extra charge. MIS has also noticed that many broadband users have wireless access points at their home or business. Most (80% in Knox County) are not setup properly and represent a security problem for their owner. MIS is beginning to offer a service for checking and improving the security and setup of private wireless access points. For people that wish to have a private WiFi access point, we will properly setup the access point and client computers in a manner that best avoids security problems and interference problems. MIS has many years of experience with wired and wireless networks and this is the first time we have made these skills widely available to private networks. If you wish to roam through your house or building with a wireless computer, check out this service of ours at http://www.midcoast.com/mis/wifi/ 1. Filtered Web Browsing Content Filtering is a technology that uses many techniques combined together for the purpose of preventing access to certain types of content on the world wide web. The system used by MIS is configured to block access to websites rich in sexual, drug, and violent content. Content Filtering has been of interest to primarily two types of people - parents and employers. Parents may want to use it as a tool to assist with safe family Internet use. It is not a substitute for supervision, but a very useful tool nonetheless. Employers are often concerned that their employees may be wasting company time and computer resources visiting adult-only websites. For employers, it is often purely a matter of professionalism to avoid such material while "on the clock." Employers are also interested in reducing their risk of lawsuits due to sexually offensive material being displayed on company computers. The Internet is a powerful and wonderful tool for family and business. This service helps Midcoast Internet Solutions customers to use that tool with fewer risks. We will not guarantee it is perfect, but we have found it to be very effective. To find out more about this free system, visit here: http://www.midcoast.com/help/account/filtering/ 2. New Referral Program A great percentage of our business is generated from personal referrals - referrals from people like yourself. In the past we've given existing customers who refer a new customer to us a $20 credit on their bill. Over the last several months, we've noticed current customers aren't taking advantage of the program as they once did. We've decided that we need to revamp our customer referral program. Now, instead of a flat $20 credit, you'll receive credit based on the service for which your friend signs up. If they sign up for a more expensive service, you'll receive greater reward! It breaks down like this: Dial-up referral: $20.00 Web site hosting referral: $20.00 DSL referral: $35.00 Wireless Internet referral: $50.00 Server colocation referral: $75.00 We hope you'll take advantage of this new referral policy, and refer your friends and business partners to the ISP who's still locally owned and operated, and celebrating 10 years in business this year: Midcoast Internet Solutions. 3. Billing Methods Just a reminder that we offer several different ways to pay here at MIS. The vast majority of you still prefer being mailed a paper bill--and that's ok. We're one of the few ISPs who still mail paper bills, and we're the only one we know of that doesn't charge more to mail you a bill. But we also offer monthly credit/debit options that you may find easier. With this option, you don't have to worry about mailing the bill back to us. You don't have to worry about your account getting in arrears. And, you'll save $.37 per month! :-) If you'd still like to mail the bill in, remember that we have packs of return envelopes at our office. Next time you're in Rockland or Newcastle, stop in and get a pack of 12 pre-addressed envelopes for your convenience. And remember, there's a 10% discount on all services when paid a year in advance. 4. Anniversary News Since MIS was founded in 1995, that means this year is our tenth in business. And we've got some great 10 year celebratory stuff planned. We're going to start with our new 10 year logo. It'll be showing up soon on shirts, mugs, our website, and envelopes. We'll announce when the mugs get here. You're gonna want one, because they're only here for a year! 5. New Midcoast Educational Learning Opportunities One of the benefits to being a customer of MIS is the free "Beginner's Internet" class offered by SAD 5 (Rockland) adult ed. Users can take a free, one night, three hour workshop that covers the basics of working with the Internet. And that program is still available. However, new Internet users aren't as plentiful as they once were. Most people who have wanted to be on the Internet are on it by now. So "beginners" classes aren't drawing many participants. So we've created something new. Something we call the Melo (pronounced "mellow") project. The 5 Town CSD (Camden area adult ed) and Mid-Coast School of Technology (Region 8) are teaming up with MIS to offer you, the MIS customer, a price break on many computer and Internet classes. Yes, you can still take beginner's Internet for free, but you can also get a price break on eBay, Macintosh for beginners, Computers for Seniors, and, for those of you a little more advanced, Introduction to Linux System Administration! For all the details, see http://www.midcoast.com/melo 6. Scholarship Information With the starting of the second semester, the time has come for high school seniors to turn their attention towards college. With ever increasing tuition, we in the business community have an interest in assuring an affordable education to those who deserve and desire it. After all, in this business climate, we need to have a larger pool of qualified candidates from which to draw new employees. It is in our best business interest to help fund education for students. To that end, Midcoast Internet Solutions will again offer a $1000 scholarship--our sixth year! The scholarship is for any senior who will be attending an accredited two or four-year college or vocational school, and will be majoring in a computer related field. A winner will be select based on merit and need. We have asked 15 high schools between Belfast and Brunswick to select one student each to represent their school for the scholarship. A panel of judges will then select the winner. The deadline for the return of the application is April 15, so students, see your guidance counselor! 7. Congratulations December & January Prize Winners For December, the winner was Marsha Jacobs from Bayview Scheduling in Newcastle. Marsha won one of our great Christmas baskets (produced in house), including our own blend of coffee, limited edition travel mug, apple spice muffin mix, and more! January's winner was David Taylor. He won a set of street maps from Timestream Multimedia. This book is a complete set of maps for all the towns in Knox county, including those little by-ways that don't show on many maps. Value of this prize is $22.95. The February prize is something very timely for the referral contest. Heather from The Farmer's Daughter's Creations (www.fathersdaughterscreations.com) will be making a mitten/hat/scarf set, perfect for the cold weather. You can see the set here: http://press.midcoast.com/archives/hat.jpg . Thanks Heather for donating this warm and fuzzy prize! If your business would be interesed in this unique marketing opportuniy, and you'd like your business name and website emailed to our 6000 or so subscribers, contact Marketing Director Bill Batty, Jr. at bbatty@midcoast.com . 8. Congratulations to One of Our Own We want to say a public congratulation to Jim "Jimmy T" Thompson, the Virtual Domains Manager here at MIS. After years of hard work, he recently graduated with his Bachelors of Business Administration. We're very happy for him. 9. New Employee Chip Webber isn't a stranger to those of you in the Damariscotta area. He's been fixing computers for folks there for years. And he's no stranger to us, either. He's hosted the equipment for the Damariscotta cam (http://lincoln.midcoast.com/~cw/dama1.html) since its inception. And now, he's come to work with us part-time. His duties (based out of the Newcastle office) include tech support and DSL installation and troubleshooting. Having a specially trained DSL technician in the Tidewater area makes sense, and takes some wear and tear off Paddy. -- Thanks for reading our newsletter. We try to pack it full of useful information, as well as hi-lighting new products and services. Thank you for being a midcoast.com customer!