Volume 6 Issue 11

June, 2001

Office Improvements

We are making a few changes to our office administration functions to improve service to our subscribers.
These improvements include upgrading our billing software, emailing statements, automating credit card processing, and changing our mailing address for payments.
Starting next billing period, we will be upgrading our version of QuickBooks to QuickBooksPro 2001.
This new version will enable us to email our Invoice/Statements. At first, we will only be emailing statements to subscribers who pay by credit card.
Subscribers who pay be check are encouraged to advise us if they would also prefer to receive their invoices via email.
Within the next few months, we will also be automating our credit card processing.
We have secured a new mailing address to avoid any further problems with the postal service.

New Mailing Address

You may have noticed that the return address on your Invoice/Statement has changed to our new mailing address. Our new mailing address is:

PO BOX 376
Prides Crossing, MA 01965-0376

Subscribers who pay by check are encouraged to mail their payments to this new address.
We have not moved our offices from 27 Congress Street, but needed to improve the reliability of our mail service.

Faster Network Speeds

We are making several improvements to our network, which will provide faster network response for our subscribers.
These improvements include upgrading our ethernet speeds and implementing a web caching server.
Our internal ethernet is being upgraded from 10 Mbps to 100 Mbps. This will improve the speed of our network, especially for large file transfers.
We are also implementing a new web caching server to increase the responsivness of web traffic during periods of heavy Internet congestion. This will mean faster downloads of web pages and images for our subscribers.

Help Desk Notes

Back to normal! It was another quiet month at the help desk.
Some subscribers continue to try logging in using their real names.
Please remember; you must login using your user name (your email address without the @cove.com part).
As always, if you have any trouble, please call us. After business hours, our new toll free number is 877-221-2116.
We're here to help you!

SysAdmin's Corner

Our network is back to normal with no outages to report.
In May, we implemented the new Tomcat Java Application server on our UltraSparc, renovated one of our SGI Indy R5000s and made that our new covecam server, and built a new SSL-enabled Apache web server with 128-bit encryption to replace our old Stronghold server.
This month, we will be building the web caching (SQUID) server and experimenting with some new Java applications we are developing.

Subscriber Referral Program

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?
Just recommend our service. If they subscribe, we'll give you a free month of access!
They will appreciate your advice and you'll save a little money.
Again this month, over a dozen subscribers are getting their access in June for free - by referring new subscribers.

Everybody wins!

Internet Training

Have you seen our new web-based training packages?
They are convenient, up-to-date, and very inexpensive.
Visit this website at:
www.courses.cove.com
You can now even take introductory Internet and general computer use courses for free! Just visit our Help Page for access.

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

Publisher/Editor, Bill Ostaski

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

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