Date |
Article |
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10/16/2003
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Marble Falls Busy Signals (10/16/2003)
The company that we use to provide our phone lines for the Marble
Falls dial-up inadvertently had one set of phone lines turned off. We have been
working with them to get this situation corrected and according to Verizon it
should be back up before 3:00 pm today. We apologize for the inconvenience and
are working with the company that supplies our phone lines so that this issue
does not happen in the future. Keith |
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9/11/2003
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Viruses and Windows Vulnerabilities Information (9/11/2003)
Over the past few weeks many new viruses have come out exploiting
Microsoft Windows and it's known vulnerabilities. Microsoft just recently
announced another vulnerability in it Windows Operating System that could be
used by hackers to get into your computer or spread viruses. It is important
that you have an anti-virus program on your computer and keep it updated regularly.
It is also important to keep your Microsoft products updated using their Windows
Update web site. By going to the Windows Update web site you can scan your
system for updates and then download them from Microsoft. We cannot stress how
important this is to protect not only your computer but keeping your computer
from becoming a way for a virus to spread. We try to stop viruses before they
get into your email or come through or network. There is always a little time
when a new virus comes out or a new worm that we are not protected. This is
because it takes time for the anti-virus companies to get an update against the
new virus or worm put out. No anti-virus program is 100% effective but having
some protection is better than none, but it must be updated on a regular basis.
Check with your anti-virus maker to find out the best way to update your program
and please make sure to visit Windows
Update to make sure your Microsoft products are up to date with the latest
patches. Another way to protect yourself is by using a personal firewall such as
Zone Alarm or Norton
Firewall. These keep others from getting into your system by blocking entry
ways into your computer you may not be aware of. If you do a search on
Google.com for personal firewall you will find many different programs. By doing
these few things you will be doing your part to make the internet a safer
place. Thanks, Keith |
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9/8/2003
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Mail Server Down (9/8/2003)
We agree it seems the problems just never seem to stop. There was another power
outage at another location in Austin where our mail server is housed and it
caused some issues in our mail server. As of 11:30 pm everything is back up and
working. |
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New Virus Information
There are many new viruses coming out it seems on a daily basis. For
all the latest information about new viruses visit Symantec's
Website. It is very important that you keep your antivirus software updated
as well as your windows software to protect against viruses. If you need help in
doing this please call our office and talk to one of the computer techs in the
office. Our 24x7 tech support is only for internet problems and cannot help with
removing viruses or updating your system. Thanks for your cooperation. |
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9/4/2003 |
Disconnect Issue Since Power Outage on
Monday - Update 9/4/2003 1:10pm
The phone company has made some changes in some equipment and that seems
to have helped the disconnect problems. If you are still having problems please
contact our office or tech support for further assistance. |
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9/1/2003 |
System Down on 9/1/2003
On Monday 9/1/2003 there was a power problem at the location that houses our
dial-up equipment. This started about 6:30am and was not resolved until 5:30 pm.
We don't expect any further problems with electricity but will monitor the
situation. We know this was an inconvenience to all and wish there was more we
could have done to get the system back up sooner, but it was out of our control.
We appreciate the patience that was shown by all. Keith |
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7/31/2003 |
Last night starting about 1:00am our upstream provider made some changes to
their network. This took longer than anticipated and was not back up until 8:00
this morning. We don't anticipate any further down time today but may have some
later tonight to finish some clean up items. We apologize for the inconvienence
and thank you for supporting Internet Gateway. |
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7/23/2003 |
Tech Support Update 7/31/2003
The new tech support number is 877-803-5634 and will be the only tech
support number that is working come Aug. 1, 2003. The old numbers for tech
support will be disconnected on Aug 1, 2003. |
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7/3/2003 |
Effective July 3, 2003 we will no longer be using postini to control spam and
antivirus on our email system. We will be using a program called Spamassassin.
The filtering for your email account will not be activated by default so
you will need to follow the instructions shown later to turn this feature on.
This is being done this way because it gives you the ability to turn filtering
on and off. Once turned on words (Bulk Email) will be added to the subject of any email that you get
that is believed to be spam. This way you can control how it is handled when it
comes to you by creating rules in your email account or by having it stored on
our server for you to delete later. You will now need to login to web based
email in order to change settings for your spam filter and to turn it on. To access web based
email YOU MUST have cookies turned on in your browser. If you are not sure how
to do this go to help in your browser and look for cookies and it should explain
what to do. To access web based email go to
http://webmail.thegateway.net and put in your username (your username is the
first part of your email address before the @ sign) and password. You can then
click on SpamFilter and set different settings for your system. Once you click
on SpamFilter the filter will be turned on as indicated by the green paw print.
If it is turned off it will be red. There is a help link once you get into the
web based email that explains more about the settings. We now have anti-virus
installed on the email server. When a virus is detected in a email it will send
a message back to the person sending the email to let them know that it
contained a virus. This is by no means 100% so it is still suggested that you
have anti-virus on your computer also. If you were paying for the anti-virus
through postini the remaining amount will be applied to your current bill.
We will also be changing to a new tech support company starting
July 3, 2003. The new tech support number will be 1-877-803-5634 for all areas.
They are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Please be patient with them as
they learn our setup and become more familiar with our company. We feel they
will do a great job and have committed to us shorter hold times. You will also
be able to leave a message with a call back time for someone to call you back.
The old tech support numbers will be forwarded to the new number until the end
of the month.
As always we can be reached at our office at 512-930-1022 or
877-206-6606 if you have any questions. We appreciate your business. Keith
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4/30/03 |
NEW MAIL SERVER INSTALLED - 4/30
The biggest change you will notice at this time is with the web
based email. We changed to a different web based email as it is more up to
date and easier to keep updated. We were not able to copy over the address books
and preferences from the old web based email system. We will be sending an email
to those people that had address book entries that shows the list of what they
had so they can be put back in to the address book. We tried many different
things to make this work but were not able to and decided it was not something
we could continue to delay the new mail server for. You will still
login to the web based email the same way by going to webmail.thegateway.net.
We have also included a new spam tool. We will be moving away from Postini by
the end of May. The new spam software can be configured from the web based email
login by going to spamfilter. There is a help button that explains the different
settings. Once this is turned on it will put the words Bulk Email in the
subject. This will allow you to setup rules in your outlook express or other
email program that will put these messages in another folder other than the
inbox and you can then review them. The settings will also allow you to add your
own blocked senders or create allowed senders like Postini did. You can also
have the spam moved to another folder on our server before it comes to your
system and you can then review it from the web based email much the same as you
did with postini. We will also be installing antivirus software within the next
couple of weeks. This will be a free service for our customers. Thanks to all
our customers who make suggestions and help to make us better. We know the past
few weeks have been somewhat trying for some but we have been working very hard
to make things as stable and enjoyable as possible. We value our customers input
and support and know that without you there would not be Internet Gateway. Keith |
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4/30/03 |
Dial-up Phone Number Changes
If you have not updated your computer with the new phone numbers then now is
the time. We will be cutting the remaining few lines off at the end of the
month.
Here is the latest update to the Phone Number Changes: Dial-up
Phone Number Change |
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4/18/03
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Tomorrow night 4/18/03 - 4/19/03 Webserver
Move
Tomorrow night starting at 1:00 am we will be moving our webserver to a
different location. During this time this webpage along with member webpages
will not be available. This should take about an hour to complete. Once DNS is
populated with the new information everything should work fine. Keith
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Important Mail Information
Due to the increase in the amount of email being received by our customers, IGG
is going to be enforcing a new quota on email size. What this means is that if
your email file on our server reaches our quota of 15mb you will not be able to
receive any more mail until you check your email and receive what is on our
server.
This becomes more important to those people that use IMAP (web
based email) to check their email because it stays on our server even after
checking email. The way to fix this is to move email from the inbox to another
folder as that will clear out the mail file on the server.
We are sorry that we are having to do this, but without a quota
on the email server it is causing to many problems when someone with a large
email file tries to retrieve email. This causes others who are trying to check
email to have very slow response. We have tried to work so we didn't have to set
quotas but we can't justify at this point not doing so. We know there are people
that use email to receive large files from work and such but if you will call us
we can work with you to come up with another solution. We don't want to put any
hardship on anyone so if this is a concern please let us know. We are in the
process of building another mail server and possibly at that time we can remove
the quota.
This will take effect on Wednesday night at 12:00. Keith Stolle
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