Cruzio/The Internet Store Newsletter - Number 57, July 18, 2002
1. DSL Modem Sale Coming
2. Watch out! Domain Slamming
3. ShopSite Brown Bag July 25th
4. Get Rid of Spam
5. What Does Spam Do to the Internet?
6. Join Cruzio for Internet-Coffee Talk
7. We've Filled Another Barrel
8. Buddy Bucks
9. About This Newsletter
10. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
1. DSL Modem Sale Coming
This is advance notice to our members of an excellent deal coming
up on Cruzio DSL.
From August 1st to August 31st, Cruzio will offer DSL modems
for just $49.95 with the purchase of a new Cruzio DSL account
for a one-year term. That matches or beats the best prices out
there, plus you have the benefit of Cruzio's excellent service
(not to brag, but really!) If you order new domain and Web hosting
from us along with the DSL, the modem is FREE.
It's a great opportunity to get high-speed access at an even
lower price than usual.
If you've heard stories of problems with DSL, rest assured that
Cruzio handles anything and everything for you. For the same
price, Cruzio will make it painless: you don't have to wait on hold,
you don't have to go from department to department looking for people
to help you from a nameless, underinformed bureaucracy. We make the
calls. We've got great connections. And we get proven results: we're
one of the top sellers of DSL in Northern California.
Cruzio has DSL sales every few months -- the previous one was
in April. We will always let our current customers know about
sales in the newsletter, so if you miss the August special, just
watch this space for the next.
2. Watch out! Domain Slamming
Many domain names, such as "mycompany.com", are owned by
Cruzio customers. However, securing a domain name is not the end
of the story. The domain's registration must be renewed every
year, or every few years, with a payment to a company called a
"registrar." Several such companies exist. Now, some registrars
are engaging in slamming and sending misleading statements to
domain holders.
If you own a domain name you will likely receive letters looking
just like bills when the domain is near renewal. Trouble is,
these are from registrars who have looked you up in public records.
They don't have anything to do with your domain name. They want
you to change registration to their company -- and they are
going about it in a deceptive way. (Note: they are not competitors
to Cruzio; we are not a registrar, we simply help customers register
domain names.)
Sometimes the letter conveys the urgent need to "Renew Now or Lose
Your Domain!" The letters look so much like actual bills that many
people fill in information and send in payment to the address
on the letter. And the fees are generally higher than you need to pay.
If it is not a bill, the registrar is required to put a disclaimer
somewhere in the letter, to the effect of "transfer is subject to
your current registrar's permission". If you read carefully you can
find this disclaimer. Of course it's usually in small print.
If you want to check your domain name to see when it expires
and what registrar it's currently with, go to Cruzio's domain-
checking page:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/utilities/whois.html
and type in your domain, such as myname.com (without "www.")
The expiration and registrar information is listed there.
If you want to renew with the same company as before, go to that
company's Web site or call us; we can help you find it. Or just
wait for the real registrar's bill, by email or paper bill.
If you have trouble, just call Cruzio Customer Service
(831 459-6301.)
If you are paying high prices and want to switch to a low-price
registrar -- prices range widely -- you can find your own registrar
or use the low-price one that Cruzio recommends, GKG.net. Just let
our customer service staff know you want to switch and they will
help out.
If you do send in a payment to one of these shady registrars -- and
many large registration companies engage in this unseemly practice,
not just fly-by-night firms -- you need not worry about losing your
domain, or losing any service. So far, it seems that all the domain
registrars are fulfilling their registration duties properly. The
only drawback is that you'll probably pay twice what you need to
and reward a deceitful practice. So we recommend that you look
closely at that mail and let us know if you have questions.
3. ShopSite Brown Bag July 25th
So popular, we needed to repeat it!
Next Thursday, July 25th, from 12-1:30 pm, Cruzio will hold a FREE
Brown Bag Workshop:
"E-commerce: Easy and Inexpensive with ShopSite."
As usual, the Brown Bag is at Cruzio's downtown Santa Cruz location,
903 Pacific Avenue.
Reserve your seat by going to:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/business/brownbags.html
This Brown Bag will be led by our own Director of Marketing, the
personable Kathy Bisbee, who's set up several stores and knows
the ins and outs of the program. She does an excellent presentation
and is in big demand from our ShopSite customers, so it's a good
opportunity to learn -- and bring questions.
4. Get Rid of Spam
Spam, spam, bacon, and spam*. Junk email fills our mailboxes and
slows our data pipelines.
All indicators show that spam is up locally, nationally, and
still rising. It's a tremendous problem. Cruzio has done something
about it.
Over 2,000 members are currently using the free Cruzio Spam Filter
and we completely, totally, wholeheartedly encourage you to do so too.
You can filter spam from Basic Account mailboxes, now including
extra mailboxes (the ones you set up in your Cruzio Control Panel.)
We are working on adapting the filters so that private
domain names can use them, too.
Cruzio's spam filter is FREE and our engineers estimate that it
removes over 95% of unwanted junk email.
We upgraded the filter in May, so if you haven't looked at it
for a while you might want to make sure you are using full power.
It's easy. Just go to your Cruzio Account Control Panel, (it's
linked at the top of our home page, http://www.cruzio.com )
and push the "Junk Mail Filtering" button. If you've already
got some filtering on, but want to use our new extra-strength
features, click "Enable Features" in the Advanced Features box.
If you have any troubles following the above instructions, our
Tech Support Staffers are ready to help you out. It shouldn't
take long and will save you so much time.
* The name "spam" comes from a Monty Python skit:
http://www.ironworks.com/comedy/python/spam.htm
5. What Does Spam Do to the Internet?
You know about spam from your own experience: how irritating
it is to find spam in your mailbox, how hard it is sometimes to
find real email buried in the junk. But what is the effect
of spam on the Internet as a whole?
Estimates are that from 25% to 50% of all email is spam. So
right off the bat, all the equipment, personnel and procedures
involved in delivering email have to have twice the capacity
that they otherwise would. Bigger equipment is more expensive.
Bigger data pipes are, too.
Plus, spam isn't like normal email which comes in a more-or-less
steady stream. A spammer will send tens of thousands of messages
to an Internet Provider all at once, causing overloads and system
failures. A large national ISP would receive millions such messages.
AOL and Earthlink have both had instances where mail service
slowed or halted under a huge load of spam. At Cruzio we find
we have to dispatch engineers to coddle equipment and programs
which are stressed beyond normal levels. Spammers work in the
middle of the night to avoid detection, so we have to work late
hours, too.
Do spammers pay for sending spam? No, they do not. There is no
charge-per-email-sent at any email provider I know of. In fact many
spammers use the "first 50 hours free" offered by some companies and
are gone by the time the bill comes. Generally, a spammer pays no
more than a person with a normal Internet account.
Who does pay for spam, then? The carriers, for a start. That means
WorldCom, ATT, Sprint, all the big backbone carriers; the switching
and routing facilities along the way; ISP's like Cruzio; and
ultimately the recipients, who pay higher fees because twice the
desired amount of capacity is deployed. In the end, consumers pay
for the spam they receive.
It's hard to know what laws or organizations can solve the problem
of spam. But at least, with Cruzio, you can block it free of
charge.
There are plenty of resources out on the Web for people who hate
spam and want to learn more about how awful it really is.
http://spamcon.org
is a great one. And Cruzio has a page with spam info:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/email/spaminfo.html
6. Join Cruzio for Internet-Coffee Talk
Monday, July 22nd at the Boulder Creek Coffeetopia from 8:30-10:30am
Tuesday, July 23rd at the Ugly Mug in Soquel from 4-6pm
Talk Internet with Cruzio at a coffeeshop near you! Ask Cruzio staff
about DSL, Email, ecommerce with ShopSite, Web & domain hosting. At
these next visits, Cruzio staff will also show you how to use
Cruzio's advanced Spam Filter. Reserve a time for the Spam Filter
demonstration in advance at
http://www.cruzio.com/support/business/coffeeshops.html
7. We've Filled Another Barrel
Cruzio customers (and staff) have filled another food barrel.
This is our 3rd barrel this year!
As you know, Cruzio will waive the late fee of any customer who
brings in 3 cans of food for the barrel. This has proven to be
popular with our customers as well as Second Harvest Food Bank.
The Second Harvest Piggy Banks located in our lobby have just been
emptied and we'll send that along with the barrel. That pocket
change adds up. We're sending $30.77.
Thanks to everyone for making this a success! Especially thanks
to our Barbara, Cruzio's General Manager, who came up with the
late-fees-for-food innovation. Even when we aren't doing a focused
collection drive, Cruzio can provide food to those in need.
8. Buddy Bucks
Would you like $10 credit on your Cruzio account?
Tell a friend, family member or acquaintance about Cruzio.
If they give us your name, email address, or account number when
they sign up (as a new customer), we'll credit your account $10.
Would you like $20, $30, $40, or more credit on your account?
Just recommend us more than once.
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
Cruzio's location:
903 Pacific Avenue, Suite 101, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Cruzio's hours:
Sales hours: 10am-6pm, Monday through Friday; 10 am - 2 pm Saturday
Technical support: 10-6 pm, Monday through Friday, 10am - 2pm Saturday
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, Julianne, Kathy, Mark, Martin, Georgette,
Tapati, Pedro, Brittany, Alec, Barbara, Stephen, Paul,
Gershom, Phil, Laura, Jessi, Alice, Edgar, Alex,
Michael, another Kathy, Bhag, another Chris and Maria
as well as our groovy intern Ezra (the grownups);
Jake, Annika, and Carly (the kids)
This has happened more than once: the kids are asked to clean their
room. Jake, 10, and Annika, 7, are cleaning up but feel the need to
report that Carly, 5, is not helping.
Mom: "Carly, why aren't you helping?"
Carly, on various occasions:
- "I cleaned it last year."
- "I'm asleep." (She lies down and makes loud snoring noises.)
- "I'm hibernating."
- "I'm laying an egg."
