Volume 4 Issue 9

April, 1999

Spring Cleaning

Spring is in the air and our thoughts turn to...spring cleaning! Time to drag out the old and bring in the new.

With this in mind, we ask the question: “Are you still running Windows 3.1? Microsoft doesn’t even mention Win 3.X on their website anymore and your old Trumpet Winsock is no longer supported by the developers.

Maybe its time to upgrade your system? We understand if you are perfectly content with your system as it is. You may need more memory; upgrading costs money. But upgrading your dialer is still a wise idea, according to Steve Day.

The upgrade is free, but has a hitch. You must also install Internet Explorer. In all, the upgrade would take up about 5Mb of disk space.

Please call the office if you have the disk space and would like to install a new, improved dialer.

Melissa Virus

You no doubt heard about the Melissa Virus. Did anyone get it? From the lack of phone calls on the subject, we assume not.

Almost immediately after it appeared, the Internet security gurus at CERT had a software fix for mailservers, which filters out Melissa-bearing email. We had the fix installed first thing the next morning.

Anti-Spam Tools

A subscriber recently asked why he never received junk email, while his friends on other networks were bombarded with the stuff.

The answer lies in our mail server. The very talented folks who built our mailserver included anti-spam software, which filters out email from well-known spammers.

It doesn’t filter all spam, though, and you may want to consider installing anti-spam filters on your own system if it really bothers you.

We are testing several freeware anti-spam tools for ease-of-use and will present our recommendations in a later newsletter.

Help Desk Notes

Most of the calls we received this month were the result of changes to settings on subscribers’ dialers and email programs. Some were caused by users and others by users installing free AOL disks. We caution anyone thinking of installing AOL to make a backup of their files prior to installing AOL software.

We also noticed many folks from Cape Ann calling into our Salem number. Please remember, our Gloucester number is 282-3399 - it’s toll free!

We again urge our subscribers who are new to using the Internet to spend a little time with our Help Section, located on our main page. In there, you will find several, very useful references on using browsers and email programs. There is also a very good tutorial site by Yahoo, called the Beginner’s Guide, which contains many interesting and informative links and pages.

The Help Section also has several good links to 56K sites, for those looking for information on KFLEX, X2 and V.90 technologies.

New Subscriber Referral Promotion!

Are you pleased with our service? Do you know someone who is unhappy with their current Internet/On-line service?

Why not do them, and yourself, a favor?

Simply recommend our service to someone. If they subscribe to our service, and tell us you referred them, we will give you a free month of access!

They will appreciate your recommendation and you’ll save a little money!

Again this month, over a dozen subscribers are getting their access in April for free - by referring new subscribers.

Everybody wins!

SysAdmin's Corner

It was inevitable. On March 31, we suffered an outage. Our network was fine, but our upstream provider lost connection to the Internet (UUNET) due to a fiber break in downtown Boston. To make matters worse, their router card that connects us to them failed and had to be replaced.

Internet Training

Until we can establish another classroom on Cape Ann, Cape Ann subscribers are invited to attend the Salem classes at half-price!

Classes will he held at our Salem facility in April on the 13th and 27th and in May on the 11th and 25th.

What's New at the Cove is a monthly publication of Cove Communications.

Publisher, Bill Ostaski
Editor, John Trefry

27 Congress Street
Salem, MA 01970
(978) 741-5300
(978) 282-3399
office@cove.com

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