INews Newsletter - Jan 26, 2001
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* * * I N e w s * * *
A publication of Internet Nebraska, composed and distributed by
* * * manager@inebraska.com * * *
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Volume 4, Number 1 January 26, 2001
Welcome to another issue of INews, Internet Nebraska's customer
newsletter. This monthly newsletter communicates service bulletins,
announcements and other useful information to our customers. Please let
us know what you think of it. Archives of INews are located at
http://www.inebraska.com/inews
In this issue: Help Us Fight Illiteracy
ADSL ASAP!
Protecting Your Computer from Hackers
SETI@Home
Mr. Internet
*** Internet Nebraska to Partner with the Lincoln Literacy Council ***
Illiteracy remains a problem in the United States today. It is estimated
there are over 23,000 illiterate immigrants and refugees living in Lincoln
alone, and over 40 million people in the United States who can not read.
We recognize the success Nebraska has had integrating immigrants and
refugees into our state, but blending different cultures can take time and
money. Internet Nebraska is pledging $2 to the Lincoln Literacy Council
for every new account generated in the month of February.
New residents who face English-as-a-second-language literacy barriers can
find themselves without the basic social skills required to communicate
with potential employers, physicians, or even bus drivers. The Lincoln
Literacy Council works to break down these barriers with several different
programs, all of which require money for materials. Several dozen
$20-books are required each month, and Internet Nebraska would like to
help buy them for March.
Get your friends and family to sign up for Internet service with us during
February. Our referral program *still* applies through this. If they
sign up for a new account whose first term costs $19.95 or more and give
your name, we will credit your account for $19.95 upon receipt of their
payment. Our standing 3-for-1 flat-rate offer allows you get a friend
online at $19.95 for their first three months, while you get a $19.95
credit *and* we send another $2 to the Literacy Council. It's a terrific
deal for everyone.
If you want to do more to help fight illiteracy in Nebraska you can
volunteer your time at a local literacy program, or send donations
to:
Internet Nebraska
Attn: Amy Reiser/Literacy Fund
1719 N. Cotner Blvd, Suite B
Lincoln, Ne 68505-5301
Thank you for your support.
*** ADSL Promotion Back On! ***
For those of you who'd been kicking the tires of DSL but hadn't made up
your mind before last year's promotion ended... The promotion is now back
on and good until February 15!
Anyone signing a one-year contract for an DSL circuit by February 15 will
be eligible to receive a Cisco 675/678 router for the low purchase price of
of $99.95, a savings of over $230. Anyone signing a two-year contract will
be eligible to receive a router absolutely free (a $330 value!) With
either contract, the regular $100 startup fee from Alltel is waived! See
http://www.inebraska.com/dsl/ for details!
That makes getting your circuit right away a great idea, but check this
out:
If you're already an Internet Nebraska dial-up customer and you want to
switch over to 384K DSL, you'll also get the first three months of your
DSL Internet connectivity for the price of one! Pay one month now at
$19.95 and we'll throw in 2 months of DSL Internet access free. That's a
savings of $39.90, besides the telco savings above. Just be sure and
enter PROMO on the referredby line of your sign-up form.
*** Schaefer's TV & Appliance Center - Advertisement ***
Schaefer's is an independently owned and
operated television, appliance, and home
theater retailer in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Born out of a small corner drugstore four
decades ago, Schaefer's TV & Appliance is a
22,000 square-foot "superstore" today,
specializing in commercial/professional-grade
appliances, whole house sound systems, home
theater and central vacuum systems. The
success of Schaefer's is key to repeat
business. If a customer happens to have a
problem with a product, Schaefer's will bend
over backwards to get it solved. Our service
center is the largest in the city, and has been
voted Lincoln's #1 servicer for 10 years in a
row! A knowledgeable sales staff, express
delivery, easy financing, and our customer
service representatives are just a few of the
ways in which we at Schaefer's distinguish
ourselves from the rest. Stop by our showroom
at 48th and R in Lincoln, or call us at
and see for yourself.
-- http://www.schaeferstv.com/index2.htm
*** Play it Safe with Personal Firewalls ***
For those who are interested in taking that extra step in securing your
Internet connections, you might want to try a personal firewall. Software-
based firewalls are simply programs that run in the background and either
alert you when an unauthorized connection is being made to your computer
or just outright deny it. Many software firewalls allow you to set up
rules that will allow only certain programs on your computer to access the
Internet. This allows for only those programs that you trust to access the
Internet, preventing the likes of trojan horses and some virii from
opening your computer to attacks. Those of us that connect through modems
are at slightly less risk, if only because we are not always connected to
the Internet. Always on connections, such as DSL, on the other hand,
allow for a 24 hour/day risk of intrusion.
Most services on the Internet run on what are known as "ports." Ports are
the the opening through which information travels. Some common ports are
used every time you connect to the Internet. When you access most
websites, you open a unused port on your computer to access port 80 for
the website. Conversely, if you were hosting a website on your own
computer, people coming to your site would open a unused port on their
computer and connect to YOUR port 80. A list of a handful of commonly used
ports follows, but note that it's far from complete. There are literally
hundreds of assigned ports for Internet services.
21 FTP - Used when transferring files via FTP.
25 SMTP - Used for sending email to an Internet mail server.
53 DNS - Used for translating URLs such as www.inebraska.com
into IPs like 199.184.119.187.
80 HTTP - Used as the default port for most websites.
110 POP - Used for receiving your email from an Internet mail server.
443 SSL - Used for secure websites.
In addition, there are tens of thousands of other ports available on
Internet-connected computers that don't have services assigned to them,
and are normally used for making outgoing connections. Sometimes, however,
these ports can be used by trojan and back door programs like Netbus,
SubSeven, and the venerable BackOrifice. This is where a personal
software firewall may come in handy; they can be set to deny access on all
those unwanted ports that you might have open.
Many software firewalls are rule-based. This means that you can program
them with such rules as "if any computer tries to access port 111 on my
computer, deny it." You can also set them to something like "if Outlook
Express tries to access the Internet, let it." These are just a few small
examples of the configuration options on most of these programs allow.
If you'd like to learn more about personal firewalls, we suggest
reading reviews of software from various vendors that will compare the
price and performance of each. Here are a few relevant links that you might
want to check out:
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/reviews/0,6755,2580291,00.html
http://www.cnet.com/software/0-3752-7-2342083.html?st.sw.3752-7-2342092.txt.3752-7-2342083
For those interested in knowing what we think of the different products,
our staffers seem to be evenly split between Sygate Personal Firewall
( http://www.sygate.com/free/spf_download.htm ) and Zone Labs ZoneAlarm
( http://www.zonelabs.com/download.htm ). Both of these utilities are free of
charge for home use, and come highly recommended from many review sites.
If you find yourself the recipient of an attack, you want to make sure
that you have done a few things to make sure that the information your
firewall reports is useful. First, make sure that the time on your
computer is synchronized (or very close to it) with the rest of the world.
You'll also want to make sure that you send the timezone offset (-0600 for
the Central Time Zone) with your intrusion logs. Lastly, you need to send
the logs to the right complaint department.
Finding the right complaint department... That's an INews article in
itself. Look for it next month.
*** The Capital Soccer Association - Advertisement ***
Capital Soccer Association specializes in
teaching soccer. However we recognize that
soccer, or any other youth sport is merely
one tool in the development of a young
child. Teamwork and sportsmanship through
knowledge and proficiency of the game are
our main goals.
-- http://www.capitalsoccer.com/
*** You Too Can Search for ET ***
Many of you have heard of SETI@Home, the worldwide project to help the
Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence by donating some of your otherwise
unused computer time to help decode radio telescope signals. If you're
already using SETI@Home, you may be interested to learn that Internet
Nebraska now has a SETI Team available for its users. You can sign up
at:
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/cgi?cmd=team_lookup&name=Internet+Nebraska
Note that joining a team doesn't affect your personal statistics in any way,
and you can only belong to one team at a time.
For those of you who are interested in SETI@Home but aren't already using
it, the concept is very simple. You download a piece of software that
runs as a screensaver on your Windows or Macintosh computer, or as a
background process if you run a UNIX-like operating system. Since the
screensaver only runs when you're not using the computer, it doesn't slow
down your work any.
You can learn more about SETI@Home and download the software from:
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
After installing the software and setting up your SETI@Home account, you
can join the Internet Nebraska group by going to the aforementioned URL,
and clicking on "Join."
*** Mr. Internet ***
Q: All my friends have some sort of online answering machine. Do you know
anything about this, and if so, where can I get such a thing?
A: Callwave has a piece of software available for free download that does
just that. If you go to the website http://www.callwave.com you will
find the download links. The Internet Answering Machine works over your
existing phone line and when a phone call comes in, the program flashes
"Incoming Call" on your screen. You can then press the "Play" button to
hear the message that was left. Although Callwave's Internet Answering
Machine should work fine with our system, We do not provide technical
support for it. (You can get support directly from Callwave.) If you
are interested, just go to their webpage and read a little about it.
The Internet Answering Machine is free of charge, and only takes a few
minutes to download and install.
Mr. Internet is a regular feature of the INews, and he welcomes questions
of any kind. Just mail them to mrinternet@inebraska.com, and he'll answer
one or two each issue. Those he doesn't use will not necessarily be
answered, and you should still use 'manager' and 'accounts' for regular
business.
*** Advertise on Our Home Pages ***
What better way to advertise your business than on a Web page that is seen
tens of thousands of time every month? None, if you're paying as little
as we charge for it!
We are now offering banner advertising that rotates on all our pages
which is priced based on the number of impressions (viewings) per month.
Your banner can reach thousands of Nebraska residents, and this is a
unique way to advertise your Nebraska business to residents in the area.
Prices for banner advertisement can be found at:
http://www.inebraska.com/ad.html
We will also be selling links from our main page. Please contact
manager@inebraska.com, or give us a give us a call at our office,
402-434-8680, and ask how you can reserve banner spots on some of the
hottest URL's in the state. The advertisers in this issue did, and we
recommend them highly.