Cruzio/The Internet Store Newsletter - Number 39, October 11, 2000
1. Celebrate! 5 million visits to Cruzio's home page.
2. Come to the Fair tomorrow (Thurs, Oct 12th)!
3. Sales Specials
4. Home page: new features
5. October Business Brown Bag workshop: Get ready for the holidays!
6. DSL status report
7. DSL security
8. November classes: Using the Internet and Publishing on the Internet
9. About This Newsletter
10. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
1. Celebrate! 5 million visits to Cruzio's home page.
The Cruzio home page, on the Web at
http://www.cruzio.com
has been visited over 5 million times in the last 5 years. It
is the most popular and useful portal to Santa Cruz County,
regularly voted the "Best Local Web Site" in local readers' polls.
The five million mark is significant both for Cruzio (we work hard
to keep the page current, local, and lively) and for Cruzio members,
who have the benefit of putting listings links right on the home page
in very visible places free of charge. Remember, if you haven't already,
to keep your Web site index listing and your Web Mall entry current,
and to use the Cruzio member databases as needed. Instructions on those
three follow:
Note: if you're not familiar with your Cruzio control panel (aka your
Account Information Manager), see instructions under "How to reach
Cruzio", in item 10 below.
*To enter or update your Web page index:
Go to your Cruzio control panel, find WWW Services, and select
"Change Index Listing"
*To enter or update a Web Mall entry (available only to ShopSite customers):
Go to your Cruzio control panel, find WWW services, and select
"Manage ShopSite". From that page, select "Manage Mall Listing"
*To enter, change, or delete Calendar, Directory, or For Sale entries:
Go to your Cruzio control panel and select "Database Services"
2. Come to the Fair tomorrow (Thurs, Oct 12th)!
Please attend the Small Business Internet and Technology Fair
tomorrow, Oct 12th. It runs from 11 am to 7 pm, and will be held
at the Santa Cruz Vets Hall at 846 Front Street, next to the Post
Office. Santa Cruz Mayor Keith Sugar and Chamber of Commerce CEO
Michael Schmidt will be facing off about Small Businesses' Role in
the Community, and there will be other lively and practical workshops
as well. The Fair is open to all, but particularly local small businesses.
So please come on over and introduce yourself!
For more information, please see http://www.smallbusinessfair.com
Schedule of Workshops and Discussions:
Noon - 1:00 pm: Business brown bag, meet and greet - Local small
businesses introduce themselves
Noon - 12:30 pm: Power searching on the Internet- Topsy Smalley,
Cabrillo College Internet Librarian
12:40 - 1:10 pm: Power searching (another session) - Topsy Smalley
1:15 - 2:15 pm: Writing plans, proposals and other business documents -
Jackie Iddings, President, Semantechs
1:30 - 2:45 pm: Virtual downtowns - Downtown Association Director
Pete Eberle and Cruzio Marketing Director Kathy Bisbee
1:30 - 2:30 pm: 10 secrets of successful online businesses - Brant
Smith of Imagesmith
2:30 - 3:30 pm: Setting up your network - Peter Huemer, User-Friendly
Computing
2:45 - 3:45 pm: Financing a small business - Pam Zamani, Vice
President, Coast Commercial Bank (and Cabrillo instructor)
3:15 - 5:00 pm: Small business' role in the community - Santa Cruz
Mayor Keith Sugar, Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce CEO
Michael Schmidt, Small Business Development Center's Teresa
Thomae, and local business owner Emily Reilly
4:00 - 5:00 pm: Sustainable business - Santa Cruz Area Chamber of
Commerce Committee Chair Coleen Douglas
4:00 - 5:30 pm: E-business plans, E-commerce challenges - Cabrillo
College Division Chair David Ambrosini, SCTA's Stephen Beedle,
and John Govsky of Cabrillo College and Cruzio
5:30 - 6:30 pm: Driving your online business to success - Peggy
Dolgenos, Cruzio President and CFO
3. Sales specials
*Until December 31st, 2000, Cruzio will be dropping setup fees on
domain names. That is, if you register a new domain name, or move
one from some other registrar, the normal setup fee will be waived.
Note too that domain names now cost only $15.99/year in registry
fees, rather than the former price of $35/year. Cruzio charges
$10/month, billed quarterly, for domain hosting, which includes
unlimited email addresses, 6 separate password-protected e-mailboxes,
and a host of other handy features. Please see
http://www.i-stor.com/demo
to try a Cruzio domain account's features.
*Until December 31st, 2000, Cruzio is giving a $30 discount on
all ShopSite Manager and Pro sales.
*Until December 31st, 2000, Cruzio is giving a third-month-free
sale for new dialup accounts: sign up for three months of service,
pay for just two months. You might want to tell those friends or
colleagues on (ahem!) other services that now's the time to switch.
Haven't they been grousing about poor service long enough?
4. Home page: new features
To celebrate 5 million hits to www.cruzio.com, our intrepid Web master
has given the Web site a new look, and has added many new links:
- Election 2000
Online information resources for the smart voter.
- Calendar
New links to movie listings and the online Metro and
Good Times and UCSC entertainment calendars.
- Online Shopping
Get your Web store listed in the new Online Mall! It's at the
bottom of the home page, http://www.cruzio.com
- Plus new links in the Local Info, Computer and Internet sections.
Check it out! We're always open to feedback and suggestions, send them
to us in a handy Web form found at:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/#suggest
5. October Business Brown Bag workshop: Get ready for the holidays!
Thursday, October 26th 12:30-2pm at Cruzio
Business Brown Bag: Get ready for the Holidays!
$5 to attend, which can be applied to any domain hosting purchased
after attending this workshop.
Don't miss out on this years' holiday shopping spree online. With enhanced
security and millions more people around the globe accessing the Web, your
business can reach far beyond borders. (No pun intended.)
Start a new business, expand your sales by learning how to effectively use
Shopsite to create an online store, sell your products and generate
traffic to your site.
Register for this event at:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/business/brownbags.html
6. DSL status report
We check daily on the backlog of DSL accounts that had trouble back in
May, June and July, and most of the accounts have been processed. We
say it every month, but we really do appreciate that Julianne, Hilary,
Barbara, Brittany, Tim and Stephen have stayed on hold for hours a day
clearing these problems through the telephone company's bureaucracy.
Some Cruzio employees have two phones on their desks: one to wait on hold,
the other for normal usage while waiting. Surely, these employees would
rather be doing other things, but Cruzio staff and customers appreciate
what they do. Go team!
Billing problems still proliferate. Now that ASI (the company providing
DSL circuits) has worked out more of the technical details and installed
more working equipment, their billing department has received the next
burden and has been sending out incorrect bills. Cruzio is on the phone
to ASI and Pacific Bell every day attempting to resolve these problems,
which although alarming are fairly consistent (customer is billed twice for
the same service, etc.). They are very slow to change the bills and make
corrections, but assure us that corrections are coming.
Right now, the only Central Office in Cruzio's area which is out of
DSL ports is Watsonville and we are waiting to hear when new equipment
will be installed. Overall, installations are proceeding well.
For more information, please see our DSL Web page at
http://www.cruzio.com/support/dsl.html
7. DSL security
An eye on security never hurts. DSL customers will want to review the
security implications of surfing the Internet with an 'always on'
connection. Check out our DSL Security FAQ at:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/dslsecurity.html
8. November classes: Using the Internet and Publishing on the Internet
In November and December, Cruzio will be offering:
Tuesdays, 6:30-9pm: "Using the Internet", packed with tips and
tricks for speedy, fun Internet usage. Taught by the
knowledgeable, engaging Brittany.
Wednesdays, 6:30-9pm: "Publishing on the Internet I", Scintillating
instructors John, Kathy, and Priya guide students through
the process of creating Web sites for their family, hobbies
or businesses. Our most popular series.
Please check our classes Web page for the above information and more:
http://www.cruzio.com/classes/
9. 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. By the way, we would love to have a regular,
predictable schedule for this newsletter...but we simply do not send
it unless there is real news enclosed. Thus the haphazard datelines.
10. 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).
56k: 459-9408
33.6 kbps and under: 459-6230
To call Cruzio:
459-6301............Use this number to check Cruzio's system status,
pay your Cruzio bill, find out more about our hours and location,
or to reach someone in customer service and technical support.
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
Hours and location:
Sales hours: 10am-6pm, Monday through Friday; 10 am - 2 pm Saturdays
Technical support: 10-6 pm, Mondays through Fridays, 10am - 2pm weekdays
903 Pacific Avenue, Suite 101, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
To get to your Cruzio Control Panel (also known as Admin Page):
If your email address looks like "someone@cruzio.com",
go to http://members.cruzio.com/admin and type in your
login and password.
If your email address looks like "someone@mydomain.com"
--in other words, you have a custom domain name -- go to
http://www.mydomain.com/admin and have your admin login
and password ready. Note that you need to substitute your
custom domain name for "mydomain" in this example.
Thanks very much from Cruzio:
Chris, Peggy, John, Julianne, Patton, Kathy, Mark, Martin,
Georgette, Tapati, Hilary, Brittany, Alec, Rachael, Barbara,
Raelani, Priya, Stephen, Paul, Tim, Gershom, Myesha,
Kelly, Allyson, Laura, Sam, Chris, and Jessi (the grownups);
Jake, Annika, and Carly (the kids)
We were walking home on a cloudy night. Carly, age 3, looked up and said
in a hushed voice: "Mommy, the stars are sleeping."
