Another Newsletter! Table of Contents: 0) Pricing/Service Changes 1) The new T1 2) Classes 3) Web Designers 4) Chamber of Commerce Workshop 5) Content Filtering 6) Auto-Responder 0. We have evaluted the usage statistics from the past few months for our customers and feel that we can give users more resources each month and still give the same or better level of excellent service. The changes: Old: $20/month for 30 hours (+$1.00/hr for additional time if needed) New: $20/month for 30 hours (+$0.50/hr for additional time if needed) Old: $30/month for 100 hours (+$0.50/hr for additional time if needed) New: $30/month for 130 hours (+$0.50/hr for additional time if needed) Old: $50/month for a Virtual Web Server New: $45/month for a Virtual Web Server Old: $200/month for a 33.6 Dedicated Modem Connection New: $79/month for a 33.6 Dedicated Modem Connection Old: $445/month for a 56k High Speed Leased Line New: $390/month for a 56k High Speed Leased Line For a complete review of what we offer, visit our "About Midcoast Internet Solutions" webpage located at http://www.midcoast.com/mis/ On another note, we have received a couple of X2 modems from US Robotics and are in the process of testing that technology soon. (Keep your eyes on our website for updates) 1) We have added a second T1 path in. T1's are high speed (and high cost) data lines from the phone company which connect ISPs to each other and the national backbones. This new T1 path goes to Bangor and hooks into MCI. We are balancing the usage between the MCI connection and the Sprint connection that we have used for two years through Portland. This was hooked up Sunday the 18th of May. We think you will appreciate the speed increase. 2) One of the reasons for choosing our 488B Main Street office was the nice room in the front for offering small classes. Nancy Jeffers, a computer instructor who has taught for the State of Maine and for MSAD#5 Adult Education, is working with us to provide training to our customers and the community. Check our webpage or the Free Press every now and then for information about when the next classes will be. Right now, we are offering basic Internet and Windows95 classes. More classes and instructors will be added as time goes on. 3) Need a Webpage? We have an evolving list of Web Design companies located at http://www.midcoast.com/mis/webdesigners.html Each listed company has contact information and links to three sites to show their work. If you run a Web Design company, we want to help you with your business and get you listed. Visit http://www.midcoast.com/restricted/webdesigners.html to learn how to join the free program for MIS members. Web designers can also get free Virtual Web Servers. Sell three Virtual Web Servers to clients and get one free. You may use this for your company site, experimentation, vanity, or give it away to a good cause. Sell three more, get a second free site, (you get the idea). visit http://www.midcoast.com/restricted/webdesigners.html for details. 4) The 31st of May, we will be working with the Rockland Thomaston Area Chamber of Commerce to put on an Internet workshop for local businesses. This will be at the Rockland City Hall from 9am to Noon on a Saturday. Contact the Chamber of Commerce to register or get more information. We will be talking about business use of the Internet. 5) Content Filtering - sounds like fancy stuff. It's actually the controversial (and fairly effective) automated way to keep computer users out of internet sites their parent or employer don't want them to be in. Use your imagination, you don't need examples. We have heard that surfwatch (www.surfwatch.com) and NetNanny (www.netnanny.com) work fairly well. There are two schools of though on blocking software. Both deserve merit and consideration, neither has proven superior. Many parents, schools, and others feel that the best approach is to use the eyes that teachers and parents have in the back of their head to keep an eye on what young people are doing with the internet. This, in combination with a serious promise to stay out of trouble, and a signed "acceptable use policy" work very well. It's not bullet proof, but it a good civilized solution with very widespread acceptance. Others feel that blocking software, or content filtering, is quite useful. This is software that is installed on the computer which prevent sites from coming up in your web browser. The software comes with a list of built in banned sites, and updates are available. Sounds pretty handy and might be useful to people. It's drawback is that there is no way to stop very new sites from being blocked without updating the software. Some philosophical computer users are also concerned that an unknown third-party someone at the software company is making the decision for them as to what exactly is good or evil and are uneasy about that. 6) MIS has an Auto-Responder on the server now for free use. The function of an autoresponder is to *instantly* send a pre-written message in response to new email that arrives on the server. Information on how to setup the autoresponder is at http://www.midcoast.com/help/vacation.html Businesses can use the autoresponder to provide an instant and courteous response to email, to let the sender know that the message arrived. You can create any message you want, but this is a sample: "Thanks for writing to our company. We just wanted to let you know that we have received your correspondance. We check the messages and respond each workday and will respond shortly." Personal users might setup an autoresponder if they go away on a long vacation: "Thanks for sending email. We will be away till xx/xx/1997 on a trip to Australia. We will respond to your email at that time. Thanks" Use of this service is free, you can customize the message to suit your needs, and enable/disable this function whenever you want.