Cruzio/The Internet Store Newsletter - Number 41, December 23, 2000

1. Happy 2001!
2. Spam update
3. Cruzio's holiday hours
4. Specials ending Dec. 28th and Dec. 31st
5. More from Nina Paley
6. Goodbye to Cruzio classes, hello more workshops
7. Static IP's on the way for dialup accounts
8. About This Newsletter
9. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)


1. Happy 2001!
Since it's the last newsletter of the year: Many, many thanks to our
wonderful staff and fabulous customers. It's been another great year.
Happy New Year!


2. Spam update
Just as our anti-spam project was getting underway, the Internet was
hit by an extra-large holiday spam deluge ("spam" is another name for 
unsolicited or "junk" e-mail). Such e-mail is not hard to delete,
but it sure is annoying and sometimes offensive.

Cruzio has always rejected measures that would filter or block
any legitimate customer e-mail. We are working on a system by which
customers can filter their own e-mail, but there are a lot of
details to work out. We are currently upgrading our mail servers to
allow more e-mail crunching and have two top engineers on the problem,
but as yet we have no estimated availability date. Thanks for your
patience, and please know that it's been pushed to the top of our
engineering queue. We will send updates as soon as news is available.

Cruzio has always had anti-spam measures in place, but spam purveyors
grow more sophisticated each year and Cruzio must respond. Unlike many
other Internet Service Providers, Cruzio does not provide member names,
e-mail addresses, or other information to any outside company for any
reason. And we have a strict policy for spammers found among our customers:
any Cruzio member found to have knowingly sent spam is kicked off 
the system.

We expect holiday spam to dwindle after the end of the year. So
due to both Cruzio and the calendar there is relief from spam in sight.


3. Cruzio's holiday hours
Cruzio's sales office and technical support lines will be closed
on Saturday, December 23rd; Monday, December 25th; Saturday, December 30th;
and Monday, January 1st. We will be monitoring the system on those days, 
and of course customer alerts regarding system emergencies will be
attended to. We apologize for any inconvenience, but our staff works 
hard all year and we need a break!


4. Specials ending Dec. 28th and Dec. 31st
Cruzio has a lot of special prices on new orders right now, running
for several more days. If you sign up for a new service:
	Until December 28th, 2000:
		- DSL, $99 rebate
	Until December 31st, 2000:
		- Dial-up connections, 3rd month free (56k, 33.6k and ISDN)
		- Domain name, no setup fee (normally $25)
		- ShopSite Manager or Pro Web stores, $30 off
To order a new service, please call us up at 459-6301, drop by our
Downtown Santa Cruz store at 903 Pacific Avenue, or fill out an online
application (the link is right at the top of www.cruzio.com). 


5. More from Nina Paley
Many of Cruzio's members must remember Nina Paley, a local cartoonist.
Nina was our housemate for a year (1989-90) and drew the Cruzio Kitty,
along with some other artwork, to pay her rent.

Now that we've got better software and hardware, we're able to make
more use of some of the non-kitty cartoons Nina drew for us. We rooted
around our old files and came up with several cool ones. So keep a
lookout; some different Nina cartoons will be appearing in Cruzio ads.


6. Goodbye to Cruzio classes, hello more workshops
After several years of producing very successful and popular Internet
classes, Cruzio and its staff must, sadly, end the program.

The Cruzio class program was a joint venture between Cruzio and
several employees, who acted as instructors and class co-ordinators.
The employees were so good at their other jobs that they have all
been promoted and are now busy working on core Cruzio business
(such as maintaining our great Internet service). They aren't
able to continue with their teaching schedules. 

Since such classes are now available elsewhere -- Cabrillo College,
New Horizons, The Spot, UCSC extension, The Senior Center -- Cruzio
doesn't feel people are being left without alternatives. We are looking at
making arrangements with other teaching venues so that Cruzio members
will receive special discounts.

We enjoyed the classes. Hope you did too. We will be channeling some
of our teaching energy -- for several of our employees really enjoy
teaching -- into more frequent Brown Bag Workshops. Workshops are shorter,
more flexible and task-oriented. Our instructors will be holding forth
soon on topics like "Save money by sharing a DSL connection", coming
in January.


7. Static IP's on the way for dialup accounts
For those of you who've wanted static IP accounts on your dialup
accounts -- dialup meaning 56k, 33.6k, 28.8k, 14.4k and ISDN but not,
repeat, NOT DSL -- an update. Static IP's are in the works and should
be available within the next month or so. The price will be under $10
for an IP address added to a Cruzio dialup account. Static IP addresses
for DSL are also coming, but at a later time. Stay tuned.


8. 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.


9. 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:
   
   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

    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)

Cynical kids of today, at the Santa Claus booth:
	Mom: "Do you want to sit on Santa's lap?"
	Jake, 8: "Nah."
	Annika, 5: "I'm busy."
	Carly, 3: "That's not Santa, that's a man."
Where has Santa's glamour gone?