MIS Newsletter - Important! 0.) Connection Speed 1.) Full Email Address Log-On 2.) Wireless Special 3.) Domain Hosting at MIS 4.) More Mailboxes for Virtual Domains, and Neww Lower Price! 5.) Billing Date, or "How much do I owe?" 6.) Some Equipment Updates 7.) Lots of Viruses 8.) Datacenter in the news 9.) Lightning Warning 0.) Connection Speed: One of the most frequently asked questions we get here at MIS has to do with connection speed. "Why does my connection speed vary?" "Why can't I connect over 28.8, even though my modem is 56k?" "Why does my friend across the street connect at 48k, and all I get is 14.4?" There are so many variables in a connection, and each one is just as important as the others. One bad link in the chain causes the whole thing to crash. Is your modem 56k? Are you dialing a 56k line? What kind of modem are you using? Here are some tips you can use to help troubleshoot your connection. a.) Make sure all your settings are correct for MIS. If you're using a PC, make sure all "Advanced Options" are turned off in Dial-Up Networking. If you're using a Mac, make sure "Allow TCP Header Compression" is turned off in the PPP/Remote Access options. Make sure you correctly followed the instructions provided by MIS. b.) Make sure the connection between your modem and the wall is a clean as possible. Make sure there are no splitters or couplers (other than a quality surge protector) between the modem and the wall. Make sure you're using decent phone cords as well. c.) Make sure it's not the wiring inside your house. On the outside of your house, usually in a gray box, you will find the phone company's demarcation point (demarc). In it, you will find a test jack. Plugging a phone cord from the modem into this jack eliminates the wiring of your house. If your connection speed gets better from this point, you know it's the wiring inside your house. d.) Still no luck? Try taking your computer to a place that has a known good connection. How does your machine work from here? Or, you could take a machine that you know can make a good connection, and take it to your place. How does it connect? It may just be your location. Depending on how the phone company runs your signal, you may never be able to get above 28.8k. (We see this a lot in the Cushing/Friendship/Waldoboro area.) e.) How about your modem? Although it may be a "56k," all modems are not created equal. We like Zoom, US Robotics (3com), and Best Data modems. We would urge you to stay away from HSP, Rockwell, and HCF modems, or any other modem based on a Rockwell chipset. A Waldoboro customer saw his speed becoming slower and slower, all the way down to 24k. His friend across the street (also a Midcoast customer) was connecting at 49k. He swapped his old modem for a new one, and viola! 49k. f.) Is your modem using the most current drivers available? Drivers are the software that "drives" your modem. Manufactures (as are all things in the computer world) are always upgrading their products. So, they frequently update their drivers as well. Make sure you are using the most up to date drivers for your modem. You can usually find drivers in the "download" or "support" section of the manufacturer's homepage. You can also find drivers and other good modem tips at www.56k.com. 1.) Full Email Address Log-On: Does your email address end with @midcoast.com? If so, you are able to log into most servers with just your username. But you can't log into the Damariscotta, Bath, or Wiscassett numbers that way. It's the opposite for @lincoln.midcoast.com customers. To help avoid confusion, all new customers are instructed to log in using their full Midcoast address: username@midcoast.com, or username@lincoln.midcoast.com. If you use this method, you won't have any problems logging into any server, regardless of where it's located. We encourage all users to log in using their complete address. 2.) Wireless Special: Just a reminder of our first ever special. Charles Jones, the Wireless Coordinator, made a special purchase of some antennas and radios which will allow you to Go Wireless for Less! You could save over $400! All the details can be found here: http://www.midcoast.com/mis/wireless/special.html 3.) Did you know that Midcoast Internet Solutions also does domain hosting? If you are looking into getting your own personal or business Internet domain then Midcoast Internet can help. We offer different options ranging from Web hosting, Domain hosting and Domain holding services. If you need a place to host your web site, we can provide space as well as help you find a web page designer. We can also register and hold your domain if you want to get that domain name before someone else does. We can also attach a domain name to your midcoast.com~ (tilde) site. Please visit www.hosting.midcoast.com or call Jim Thompson to discuss how Midcoast Internet hosting can work for you. 207-594-8277 X102. Don't forget to check out http://hosting.midcoast.com for all your web hosting questions or needs. 4.) To go along with Jim's Virtual Domain update, all of our Virtual Domains will now come with 20 email boxes, instead of 6. You can now sign up for extra email boxes on the web! Here's the address: https://www.midcoast.com/~domains/emailform.html. Also, the price for hosting a domain with Midcoast Internet has dropped from $39 to $35. Also, people who sign up for a 1 year contract will be billed at $30 per month. And, if you sign up for a year of service, and pay a year in advance, you'll pay just $27 per month! ($30 plus a 10% discount!) 5.) Billing Date, or "How much do I owe?" This is a common question that we would like to try and clear up. We bill each month on the 17th. That bill represents the preceding 30 days. In other words, you pay behind (or what accountants would call "in arrears"), not ahead. When you receive our bill, it's for time you've already used. Many customers confuse our midcoast.com $20 setup fee as paying the first month in advance. The setup fee covers our costs involved with putting new customers on our servers, and not any monthly costs. 6.) Some New Equipment: We have added another T1 to our backbone, for a total of 6. We have also added a new T1 that runs between Washington and Damariscotta. With this new link, if a T1 goes down from Dama to Rockland, or from Washington to Rockland, traffic will be diverted to either Washington or Dama, and then to Rockland. This will result in less downtime, something that had happened somewhat regularly in Washington. 7.) Viruses: Viruses have been spreading through the area in a higher concentration than ever before. Carolyn from Rockbound Computer reports that she has never seen so many computers come through her shop with viruses. We at Midcoast have always advocated good virus practices: don't open attachments from people you don't know, or attachments you weren't expecting. But now, most people in the office are running Norton Anti-Virus 2001. Feel free to try whatever program you choose, but you should definitley consider running an anti-virus program if you aren't already. 8) MIS is building a place to centralize our computers; a place commonly called a datacenter. You may have read about it in the Courier Gazette of K2BH. In the link below, we have put together some information about this project. http://www.midcoast.com/mis/datacenter/ 9) Lightning. If a summer thunderstorm comes into your area, please unplug your modem's phone line, as well as unplug the computer. Many modems are damaged every year, and it can take time and frustration to troubleshoot the problem which could have been prevented. A UPS system is a good preventitive medicine from short power outages that often accompany bad weather.