Cruzio/The Internet Store Newsletter - Number 40, November 21, 2000
1. New domains: .biz, .info, et al
2. $99 rebate on new DSL!
3. Excellent specials on other Cruzio services
4. Bring in your cans
5. Cruzio's new project to control incoming junk e-mail
6. DSL update -- FELTON now eligible!
7. Cruzio Brown Bag Workshop Nov. 30. Topic: Online Business
8. Cruzio classes in December
9. Election coverage
10. About This Newsletter
11. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
1. New domains: .biz, .info, et al
ICANN, the international organization in charge of Internet names
and numbers, has just made the front page by announcing its approval
of new suffixes for domain names, adding .biz, .aero, .name, .coop,
.info, .pro, and .museum to the .com, .org, and .net currently in use.
A person finding that myname.com is taken could then presumably
select myname.name.
This project is still in beginning stages, and the new names will not
actually be available until next year.
Since Cruzio registers domain names for our members, we are naturally
following ICANN's moves closely. As soon as the new domains become
available, we will assist our customers in registering them. So please
stay tuned; we will be informing you when this is possible. For now,
Cruzio can register .com, .org, and .net names.
See item 3 below for Cruzio specials on domain names. Excellent savings
are available for new registrations. For more information on ICANN, please
see
http://www.icann.org
2. New $99 rebate on DSL!
If you've been looking for a good price on DSL, here it is. Until
December 28th, 2000, Cruzio is able to offer a $99 rebate on new
DSL installations. Please see
http://www.cruzio.com/support/dslspecial
for specific information and an order form for existing customers.
DSL is a relatively new, high-speed Internet service. It runs over
existing telephone cable, but requires new equipment on both the
end-user and telephone company side.
DSL is a fine thing. For one data point of reference, I'm using DSL
right now and it's great. I'm accessing my work computer from home
and it feels no different from when I'm sitting at work, except I've
got my teapot and my stuffed animals nearby. Given the improvement in
the installation situation and the rebate, DSL is a good choice now.
3. Excellent specials on other Cruzio services
- New Domain names:
Domain names are a real bargain: registering or transferring a domain
name to Cruzio has no setup fee (normally $25) and yearly registration
fees are down from $35.00 to $15.99 -- more than 50% savings. So go
ahead and register thatloonyname.com (it's not taken! I just checked!)
To see if a domain name is already taken, check:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/whois
When you set up a domain name on Cruzio, you get an Internet Office
account, which is one of our best values. See http://www.i-stor.com/demo/
for a sample.
- New 56k dialup:
Any customer who orders new 33.6 or 56k dialup will get their third
month FREE. Cruzio recently had a large number of customers leave
56k to go to DSL (ultra-fast service, see above) and we have spare
capacity. Fill it up, says the bookkeeper, and so we are offering
this very special special. Time to sign Grandma up for her own account!
- New ShopSite Web stores:
Cruzio already cuts over a hundred dollars off list price for our
ShopSite product. Our chief negotiator managed to get us a great
deal and we pass it along to our customers. Now, ShopSite Manager and
ShopSite Pro are an extra $30 off until December 31st, 2000. Compare
Cruzio's prices to any you see on the Internet for Web stores with
unlimited items. After just comparing prices, add in Cruzio's very
excellent service, our workshops and generous technical support help.
It works out to your favor.
4. Bring in your cans
Cruzio is again participating in Second Harvest Food Bank's holiday
drive. Customers are urged to bring in canned goods and other
non-crushable, non-perishable items when coming in to buy stuff or pay
bills; you can leave the food in our big Second Harvest barrel in the lobby.
Cruzio will be making cash contributions to Second Harvest, as well.
Every year, Cruzio makes major contributions and matches employee
donations to feed local people in need. We'll match customer
contributions, too, up to a total of $500.
Writing about cans reminds me of one of my grandfather's favorite memories
from World War II. People had been asked to contribute bacon grease and
other cooking fat to the war effort. Usually, housewives saved the
grease in used tin cans. But the local grocery store couldn't always
provide staff for the effort. So, the store window had a big sign in
it saying "DON'T BRING YOUR FAT CANS IN ON TUESDAYS".
But Cruzio will take cans any day our storefront is open, Monday through
Friday 10 am to 6 pm and Saturday 10 am to 2 pm.
5. Cruzio's new project to control incoming junk e-mail
Astounded by the increase in spam over the last several weeks, Cruzio
engineers are embarking upon a new project to provide our customers
with mail filters. We have always been against taking on the role of
censor, and applying a single set of filters against _your_ incoming
email. No filters are perfect, and we don't wish to prevent important,
legitimate, email from reaching our customers.
The good news is our Chief Technical Officer has been studying the
available technology for some time, and has designed a means for
implementing filters on an individual basis. This will allow customers
to use their Cruzio mailbox control panels to specify what filters to
apply against their incoming email. Email that is filtered out will be
redirected to an alternative mailbox for inspection at the customer's
convenience. No email will be deleted or refused.
This project has already commenced, but will take some time. Phase one
will be to upgrade our mail server to a faster, more powerful machine,
to accomodate the processor load of scanning every incoming email and
applying customer filters. As our customers receive tens of thousands
of emails every day, this is a very important prerequisite to insure the
mail filtering does not slow down mail service.
We wanted to let you know of our progress, and will keep you posted with
news on this matter.
(Note that Cruzio never encourages spam by selling or sharing customer
information with other parties. Your information is considered private.
We also discourage spam by filtering messages with non-existent "spoofed"
sources, and by removing customers who send spam from our service.)
6. DSL update -- FELTON now eligible!
Just as of this writing, the Felton telephone Central Office has
been activated for DSL (low cost, ultra-high-speed Internet access)!
This is great news for San Lorenzo Valley folks, many of whom
have not yet had access to the service. If you'd like to check whether
your location is good-to-go for DSL (in SLV or anywhere), please have a
look at:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/dsl.html
There is a form under "Can everyone use DSL?" which will answer whether
or not a given location can access the service.
After much, much wrangling Cruzio has a good team working with us
at Pacific Bell. We are still looking for better contacts at ASI,
the company split off from Pacific Bell to provide high-capacity
transport (the category under which DSL falls).
Cruzio is very proud of our DSL team. We read the Internet trade journals
and we know that our record is better than many much larger companies'.
And we truly wish to improve DSL service, in all aspects, even more.
Right now there's a special on DSL ($99 rebate) so it's a great time
to buy DSL. We recommend it.
7. Cruzio Brown Bag Workshop Nov. 30. Topic: Online Business
Thursday, November 30th 12:30-2 pm at Cruzio's classroom,
903 Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz.
What do you need to do business online?
$5 to attend, which can be applied to domain hosting fees after attending.
A simple Web page or Web store can provide your customers with the
information they missed when they called, visited, or saw an ad.
Cruzio provides affordable, easy-to-use methods for putting a business
online quickly. 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!
If you're feeling pinched for time, you'll appreciate getting the straight
story in a workshop by Cruzio Marketing Director Kathy Bisbee. Bring your
questions and your lunch, or place an order for a $6.00 lunch from Zoccoli's.
Our business Brown Bags are fun and informative. In the next few months
we'll be discussing "How to Save Money by Sharing a DSL Connection"
and "How to Get and Use a Domain Name (myname.com)". Let us know what
other topics you'd like to discuss.
For more information, and to register and order lunch, please go to:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/business
8. Cruzio classes in December
In December and January, Cruzio will be offering:
Tuesdays, 6:30-9pm: "Using the Internet", packed with tips and
tricks for speedy, fun Internet usage. Taught by the
spiffy Brittany.
Wednesdays, 6:30-9pm: "Publishing on the Internet I", Knowledgeable
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. Election coverage
This correspondent is a busy but enthusiastic voter, and my search
for election information on the Web began the morning of November 7,
election day.
I needed advice. I'd thought about the major battles, but needed to see
where local and state political groups stood on some of the more obscure
propositions. The result? Very disappointing. I looked at many local sites
for guidance and found none. Please, local political activists, more Web
information!
Once I'd somehow managed to vote as responsibly as possible, I began
settling in to observe the returns over the 'Net. That was more
forthcoming. The Cruzio links were very, very helpful. First, I used
the links for the election results on Cruzio's home page. Then, when
results failed to be conclusive (as the Presidential contest was and is)
I went to the "news media" link off www.cruzio.com and started checking
what the pundits had to say.
Cruzio's media list is handy. In one place a large number of good,
free news sources are listed. I went from one to the other easily,
looking for the latest updates. There are foreign news sources mixed
in with national and local ones. I found, not unexpectedly, that
newspapers provided news more slowly than the TV networks, but the
newspaper reports are more thorough and thoughtful. Although I'm no
Microsoft fan, I must admit that MSNBC was, in my opinion, the best
network news site. Bravo, online news! Now we just have to get the
Cruzio Webmaster to include http://www.theonion.com in the list.
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.
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.
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).
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
Cruzio's location:
903 Pacific Avenue, Suite 101, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Across the street from the bus station in downtown Santa Cruz.
Cruzio's hours:
Sales hours: 10am-6pm, Mon through Fri; 10am - 2pm Sat
Technical support hours: 10am -6pm, Mon through Fri, 10am - 2pm Sat
System monitoring, including customer-alerted emergencies, 24 hours
per day, 365 days per year (leap years, 366 days)
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, Kelly, Allyson,
Laura, Sam, another Chris, and Jessi (the grownups); Jake,
Annika, and Carly (the kids)
Recent bedtime discussion with Carly, age 3:
Mom: "It's so nice that you are three years old."
Carly: "I am four years old."
Mom, cheerfully: "You'll be four on your next birthday, in June."
Carly: "I am four right now in my little bed."
Mom: "You wish you were four."
Carly: "I am four right now and that's final."
