Cruzio/The Internet Store Newsletter - Number 62, March 26, 2003
1. Cruzio DSL Special, Starts April 1: FREE DSL Modem
2. "Marketing Your Web Site" Workshop Tomorrow (Thursday)
3. Coming Up: "Exposing Your Art" April 10th, FREE Workshop
4. New Mail Server
5. Santa Cruz Digital Arts Festival Starts April 3rd
6. New Marketing Assistant
7. Can't get DSL? Try Propel.
8. Local Internet-Coffee Talk Visits and Upcoming Cruzio Events
9. Buddy Bucks
10. Lighting a Candle
11. March: Donations to 2nd Harvest are Matched
12. About This Newsletter
13. How to Reach Cruzio (Dial-in or Tech Support)
1. Cruzio DSL Special, Starts April 1: FREE DSL Modem
Starting April 1st, you'll be able to purchase Cruzio's high-quality
broadband Internet service at an especially low price. We're offering
FREE modems to customers who order DSL service with us between April 1st
and April 30th, 2003. Existing customers can quickly sign up online at
https://quartz.cruzio.com/dslorder/order_dsl.html
Although Cruzio is not a large company, we are one of the top sellers
of DSL in Northern California. Why is Cruzio DSL so popular? To start,
people love our reliable, friendly service. And beyond that, Cruzio
does NOT use your service as an opportunity to sell your name and
show you targeted advertisements, as many other Internet providers do.
If you've looked into Cruzio DSL before, but your location wasn't
eligible, you might try again. Over the years the service area
has expanded and we are able to serve more customers.
2. "Marketing Your Web Site" workshop this Thursday
March 27, 2003
12 - 1:30 pm at Cruzio
In response to high demand, we're repeating this popular
workshop. Please pre-register at
http://www.cruzio.com/services/business/events.html
or call us at 459-6301 ext. 247. SPACE IS LIMITED.
It's not too late to register for Cruzio's "Marketing Your Web Site"
business brownbag tomorrow. Whether you're building a brand-new
Web site or trying to generate more hits to your site, this workshop
will give you practical tips, online resources and marketing ideas
for growing your Web presence.
Cruzio's Marketing Director, Kathy, has helped small businesses
build their ecommerce, art, and non-profit Web sites with a focus
on traffic generation, design and marketing. She's a wonderful
resource if you have questions about promoting your Web site
or about Cruzio's Web services.
The brownbag will take place at Cruzio, 903 Pacific Avenue in
downtown Santa Cruz, from 12 - 1:30 PM. Cost is $10 per person,
and lunch is available for an additional $7.
3. Coming Up: "Exposing Your Art" April 10th, FREE Workshop
An additional Cruzio brownbag, "Exposing Your Art to a Broader
Audience", is on the horizon, scheduled for Thursday,
April 10th. Cruzio has worked with many local artists and
musicians, helping them to get Internet connections, a Web site,
and opportunities to participate in community events. The workshop
will be led by Michael Wang, President and CEO of Guenther
Computer Products, with Cruzio's own Director of Marketing
Kathy Bisbee. If you are interested in registering for this
event visit
http://www.cruzio.com/services/business/events.html
or call our events hotline at 459-6301 ext. 247. The event
is FREE, $7 if you would like to order lunch.
4. New Mail Server
The volume of email on the Internet is rising rapidly, and to
handle the load Cruzio lately upgraded its main mail-handling
computer. The server is in place and working beautifully,
thanks to some hard work and late nights from the indefatigable
Chris and Mark of Cruzio Engineering.
The extra computing power is mostly necessary for receiving,
rejecting, and sorting through spam (junk email.) It is a
sad fact that the majority of email coming in to our servers
these days isn't wanted by recipients and we spend more computing
power helping you to reject it than accept it. The new Mail server
will help us avoid delays when we receive large quantities of
spam (usually sent in the middle of the night) and will ensure
that your spam filters run efficiently and quickly.
We continue to work as hard as we can to deal with spam
proliferation, and to provide you with tools for keeping
spam from impairing your Internet experience.
(If you aren't yet using your spam filter, give it a try!
It's activated from your Cruzio Control Panel. For more
information, check:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/email/junkmail.html )
5. Second Annual Santa Cruz Digital Arts Festival
Digital art. Is it contrived? Is it weird? Is it really art,
or just doodling around with fancy equipment? And -- how can
you get better at it? Learn for yourself by visiting and
participating in the second annual Santa Cruz Digital Arts
Festival during the month of April 2003 in a variety of
locations around Santa Cruz County. Cruzio is again
sponsoring the event -- we had a great time last year
presenting, seeing, and hearing many creative works.
Thursday, April 3rd, will mark the festival kick-off event at the
The Museum of Art and History in downtown Santa Cruz from 5-7pm.
This event is a part of the Museum's FREE "First Thursday" gala
and is free to the public. All art exhibitions will be presented
throughout the month of April at galleries throughout SC County.
Cruzio will also display digital art in the Cruzio lobby during
the month of April, and Cruzio's Marketing Director, Kathy
Bisbee will be speaking and showing digital video on April 3rd
at the MAH. Many thanks to Cruzio Marketing Assistant
Alice for her support of this event.
For more information visit
http://www.santacruzdigitalarts.org/
6. New Marketing Assistant
There will be a new face at Cruzio's coffeehouse visits starting
in a month or so. Please welcome our talented new Marketing Assistant,
Krissie, who's currently learning the ropes. She's replacing Alice,
who is moving on to other ventures. We thank Alice very much for
her thoughtful contributions to Cruzio and wish her the best.
Ezra, the other Cruzio Marketing Assistant you're likely to meet
at coffeehouses and other events, started his career at Cruzio as
an intern and so has escaped being announced thus far. But he
is making it into the newsletter this time, because he's
now in charge of our popular Brown Bag events. Good work, Ezra!
7. Can't get DSL? Try Propel.
If you can't get DSL, or prefer a dialup account, you can
still speed up your Web browsing with a service called Propel
Accelerator. Cruzio is partnering with Propel so that our
dialup customers have more options available. The cost is
$7.95 per month, or $59.95 per year, in addition to the regular
cost of connecting. To read more about it, visit the Web page:
http://www.propel.com/partners/1220/
8. Local Internet-Coffee Talk Visits and Upcoming Cruzio Events
Cruzio's visits to local coffeeshops will be postponed in the
month of April, but will resume in May. To stay informed about
upcoming coffeehouse visits and other Cruzio and local technology
events, set the following page as one of your favorite links within
your Web browser:
http://www.cruzio.com/services/business/events.html
You can also stay informed by calling the Cruzio Events line
at (831) 459-6301, ext. 247, where you can listen to a short
pre-recorded message regarding current Cruzio and local
technology events. If you have any questions or suggestions
regarding Cruzio events, please leave a brief message on this line.
9. Buddy Bucks
Recommend Cruzio services to a friend and get thanks from
Cruzio. If your friend mentions your account number, email
address, or the account holder's name when signing up,
you will get a $10 credit on your Cruzio account when
you sign them up for the service.
10. Lighting a Candle
Cruzio is not a political organization. We respect and provide
means for people to express their ideas, whatever those might
be. But since we are sending out a newsletter during wartime,
we can't help but express the hope that the current
conflict can come quickly to a peaceful resolution, and that
tensions and disunity in the world can somehow be transformed into
a more friendly atmosphere. Our hopes and prayers are with people
now inside the war zone: in a world where violence, to many of us,
is found in video game- and movie-warfare, their experience is
all too real.
11. March: Donations to 2nd Harvest are Matched
This time it's not Cruzio doing the matching, but a philanthropist
named Alan Shawn Feinstein who has pledged up to one million dollars
in matching donations to food banks around the country. Second
Harvest is urging us to make extra donations before the end of
March so they can earn more of the Feinstein Challenge money. We
know it's late, but if you have a chance, please remember the
hungry and send something to the Second Harvest Food Bank. Their
Web site is at:
http://www.thefoodbank.org
12. 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.
13. 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, Stephen, Paul, Gershom,
Jessi, Ben, Alice, Edgar, Alex, Michael, another
Kathy, Bhag, another Chris, Maria, Ezra, James, Juana
and Krissie (the grownups); Jake, Annika, and Carly (the kids)
and our groovy intern, Janet.
Annika, age 8, frequently starts stories but rarely finishes
them. Here's the beginning of a story I found, with first letter
"D" written very large and fancy:
"Daisy Gamette was a funny sort of Farmer. For as you no
there are pig farmers and cow farmers she was a
hamster farmer."
