Cruzio Newsletter - Number 12, January 12, 1998
1. New Year's Changes
2. New and Improved News!
3. X2 and ISDN
4. Cruzio users now get 5MB free web space
5. Beefy electrical backup is here
6. Sign up a friend and get $10 back
7. Learn new job skills
8. New mail server
9. Check or Change Your Account Info... Via The Web.
10. About this newsletter
11. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
NOTE: if this newsletter is too long for you, please read the contents
above and skip to what interests you.
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1. New Year's Changes
This year we are starting off with major investments in new hardware
and connectivity to improve Cruzio's service. We've acquired a direct
connection to the backbone for faster, better throughput to our servers.
We've contracted for an superior news feed. We've replaced all of our
older servers with new, faster computers and upgraded software, for
better performance.
We're moving toward faster speeds for customer connections, too. 56k (X2)
will soon be available, followed by ISDN. We have more special offers and
coupons for our customers (check out the "sign up a friend" deal below).
Classes have been fantastic. We've seen a number of fledgling webmasters
take off with the information on CGI, Java, Web graphics, and other topics
they've learned. We'll definitely be adding a lot more classes next year,
so please let us know what you'd like to see us offer.
Our staff is remarkably well-trained and helpful; we are very proud of
the (many!) new staff members we added last year, and our long-timers too.
And we've added many new users. Welcome! We know that the customers
have choices and we hope you'll find Cruzio to be the best Internet
service available, anywhere in the world.
Details on all this stuff and more are below. So Happy New Year, hope you
have a rewarding online 1998!
2. New and Improved News!
We've all been dissatisfied with the news feed from our former
provider, and have explored lots of options. This is to announce the
outsourcing of our news to Super Zippo News.
The advantages: MUCH more news, much less spam. We are seeing up to
50% more articles in some news groups than we did with our old news
feed, and we are tremendously pleased.
For more information, point your web browser to:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/news.html
We are transitioning to the Zippo news service by January 21.
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You will need to point your news readers to a new news server,
and there are some other pieces of information you will need.
PLEASE REFER TO THE WEB PAGE listed above for all the info!
And thanks for your patience. Switching our feed to a new provider
will give our users a much better, and more valuable, service, but as
with any change there are occasional glitches.
3. X2 and ISDN
Cruzio is currently setting up and testing the first of our new
US Robotics Total Control digital modems. As soon as this is done,
we will be offering support for X2 "56k" modems and shortly thereafter,
ISDN. (NOTE: it's the "X2" form of 56k, not the "56kflex".) We'll have
more detailed news on this as soon as our testing is done.
For more information, point your web browser to:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/highspeed.html
4. Cruzio users now get 5MB free web space
Happy Holidays! Cruzio is now giving you 5 megabytes of web space free
with any account. (That's 5 million bytes of space. When was the
last time you got 5 million of anything free?) For instructions on how
to use your personal web space, please check
http://gate.cruzio.com/support/web_free.html
Our commercial web pages will also be experiencing some upgrades soon.
5. Beefy electrical backup is here
The first of our new, huge, heavy, squat, eerily humming
Matrix 5000 Uninterrupted Power Supplies has been unloaded
(at great pain, personally, by the founder of the company)
from the truck and is in the process of being installed
as soon as Cecil our electrician wires up the new electrical
circuits necessary just to charge the behemoths. With this
and the other half-ton of new APC 1400 and 2200 UPSes, Cruzio
will now be able to run several extra hours in the event of
a power outage.
We will continue to supplement our UPS runtime capacity as the
winter progresses, including the final phase of our program,
which is the acquisition of the generators we'll be using for
power when the next (knock on wood) quake or other more major
catastrophe occurs.
6. Sign up a friend and get $10 back
We'll give you an instant $10 credit on your Cruzio account for
every friend you refer who signs up with our service. Drop by our
office at 903 Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz to pick up your "Buddy Bucks"
coupon. You then write your Cruzio account ID (your email login)
on the coupon, give it to a buddy, who gives it us the coupon (only
one per account, of course) when they start their new Cruzio account.
We credit your Cruzio account $10.00 when they sign up.
7. Learn new job skills
While you're downtown picking up the Buddy Bucks coupon, pick up
a couple of Cruzio Class Coupons, good for $5.00 off any Cruzio
class or class series. (And that's in _addition_ to the $5 off you
get for being a Cruzio member.)
8. New mail server
We've upgraded our mail server! It's now running the latest
version operating system on a brand new, fast server with
faster disks, faster network cards, faster and better everything.
Just a note, to please remember that your outgoing mail server should
be set to mx.cruzio.com.
9. Check or Change Your Account Info... Via The Web.
You can now use your web browser to check or change your Cruzio account
info by going to the following page:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/checkacct.html
Using this new web interface, you can now check your mail server mailbox
and personal web page disk usage, change your personal page web index
listing or change your email password.
This currently only works with your Cruzio email login and personal web
page account information. We're working on making this available for
managing your network login and commercial web information as soon as
possible.
10. About This Newsletter
Cruzio doesn't like to waste bandwidth with extra email, but
we sometimes have events and announcements that users need
to know about. This seems like the most efficient way to let
people know what's happening. Hope it's helpful. Please email
support@cruzio.com with any comments or questions.
11. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
To reach the Cruzio Information Center, for online technical and
sales information:
http://www.cruzio.com/support
To dial in to Cruzio, set your software to dial one of the numbers
below (note: we've expanded and joined modem pools, so you may be
using another number. If so, don't worry, it still works just fine).
33.6 kbps or 28.8 kbps modems: 459-6230
14.4 kbps modems: 459-6200
To call Cruzio, use one of these numbers:
423-1162.................Our main number, to leave a message
423-7529.................Our status line, check on system problems
459-6301.................Our "human line", from 12-6 Monday through
Friday. Talk to a human being.
To send email to Cruzio, use one of these addresses:
support@cruzio.com.......for technical support
office@cruzio.com........for billing and ordering information
webmaster@cruzio.com.....for questions about Cruzio's World Wide
Web service
Thanks very much from Cruzio:
Chris, Peggy, John, Deana, Judy, Julianne, PK, Gloria,
Holly, Alex, Kathy, Mark, Jorge, Martin, Georgette, Jay,
Tapati, and Hilary (the grownups); Jake and Annika (the kids)
and Carolyn Rose (the baby)
