Cruzio Newsletter - Number 73, March 4th, 2004
1. Email That Looks Like It's From Cruzio -- But It's Not
2. Improvements to Cruzio's Web Hosting Service
3. Cruzio Wins Blue Diamond Award
4. Voting for Metro Goldies
5. General Network Conditions Excellent
6. Let's Leave Becky Alone!
7. Cruzio Tee Shirts -- Unique & Sweatshop-Free
8. Buddy Bucks: Sign Up a Friend for Cruzio Credit
9. Bring In Cans for Late Fees
10. About This Newsletter
11. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
1. Email That Looks Like It's From Cruzio -- But It's Not
We are seeing worm-laden email sent to Cruzio customers that
pretends to be from Cruzio Technical Support or the Cruzio
Billing Department and directs you to open an attachment.
But it is fake. This message is not from us at all.
This spam is being sent out by a worm called the Beagle Worm
or Bagel Worm.
More information can be found on our virus page:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/security/virus_info.html
Some facts to remember:
-- Cruzio *never* sends email to customers with binary attachments.
-- Don't open a binary attachment from anyone unless you know
the person emailing it to you and are expecting it.
-- Do not comply with requests for your passwords or other private
information. Cruzio won't ask you for this kind of information
in email. Anyone who is truly a system administrator will not
need to ask you your password -- only your permission.
-- If the email contains a lot of misspellings or grammatical errors,
it's probably not from us. (We're not perfect, but crackers
are worse.)
-- If you have any questions, forward the email to support@cruzio.com!
Or give us a call. We're here to help.
2. Improvements to Cruzio's Web Hosting Service
We've increased the amount of service you get with a
Cruzio Web & Domain hosting account, without raising
the price. These accounts now feature:
200 Megabytes of Web space, up from 60 Megabytes
24 password protected mailboxes, up from 6
20 Gigabytes of bandwidth per month, up from 3 Gigabytes
If you already have Web and Domain Hosting, these services
are available to you now with no extra charge (in fact, we lowered
the bills for our larger customers.) If you're just considering
Web hosting services, check out our numbers! We offer an excellent
service at a good price, and now there's even more bang for the buck.
3. Cruzio Wins Blue Diamond Award
Due to staff and customer participation, Cruzio once again
made it into the upper echelons of local donations to the
Second Harvest Food Bank. We won the Blue Diamond Can award
-- there's only one level higher. For a small company, we
manage to make a sizable yearly contribution!
This is the kind of honor we strive hard to get. We strongly
believe in making sure that folks don't go hungry. Thank you
so much for helping us make a difference.
4. Voting for Metro Goldies
When customers ask "How Do I Send in My Vote for Cruzio as
Best Internet Provider" to Metro Santa Cruz's readers' poll,
we are happy to answer that their voting form is online. Point
your Web browser to
http://www.metroactive.com/cruz/
to find the poll. Voting ends March 5th, so there's not much more
time. We always appreciate your support.
5. General Network Conditions Excellent
Thanks to some very difficult work and key purchases by Cruzio
engineering staff, and constant vigilance by the Customer Service
staff (Sales and Support), email and general network performance
are now up to our high expectations.
To understand why you may occasionally experience short-
term problems with your Internet service, even with Cruzio,
it's helpful to understand how spam and viruses affect the
Internet.
The increase in spam and viruses flowing into the Internet is
like the addition of more water -- much more water -- into a
plumbing system. It raises the pressure on the system.
When all the taps are open (if filters aren't implemented),
the spam comes gushing out into people's mailboxes.
When we close off the taps, the pressure starts building
further up the pipes. The same is true throughout the Internet,
where spam and virus traffic have been doubling a few times
a year.
Since the whole system is having to hold more than it was
designed for, it must be repeatedly replaced. People use their
Internet services 24 hours a day, so we must make the changes
while in operation, without losing any data.
We thought this analogy might help you understand effects
that unwanted data can have, beyond the spam you may see in your
mailbox: usually brief downtime or slowness on the Internet as
either Cruzio or some other company deals with an equipment upgrade
or virus attack.
We're happy to say that right now we've put things in order and
have new improvements on the way. Let us know if you have any
problems or questions.
6. Let's Leave Becky Alone!
Cruzio members are clearly happy with our newly available
Nationwide Dialup capabilities. When traveling, many people
dial in to their Cruzio accounts -- it's a local call from
almost anyplace in the United States.
But there is a dark side. Cruzio got a call from a woman named
Becky in Southern California whose phone number ends with 9408
-- the same digits as Cruzio's Santa Cruz dialup number.
Some Cruzio members are simply changing the area code on the
Santa Cruz number instead of looking up the local dialup number for
that area. They are calling Becky's number, and she answers the phone
only to hear the screeching of a modem (not pleasant.) Please, for
Becky's sake, look up the number before dialing.
To look up a number please go to:
http://www.flexpop.net/hub.php3?c=Locations&p=Numsearch
You can also reach that page by going to the Dialup Support section
of Cruzio's Website and clicking on the link under "Nationwide Access."
7. Cruzio Tee Shirts -- Unique & Sweatshop-free
Spring is here and that means ... Cruzio's new tee-shirts
are in! We've got a kickin' variety of colors and styles, all
100% cotton, and sweatshop-free. They fit well -- we have men's
and women's shirts, sizes from small to XXL. They are high
quality (like everything we sell at Cruzio), and only $10 per
shirt.
And what an experience when you are rafting down the
Amazon and someone calls out "Is that a Cruzio Tee Shirt?"
Find your neighbors 'round the world with this pure 100%
Santa Cruz tee.
8. Buddy Bucks
Recommend us to friends, family, colleagues: if a new customer
gives us your email address, registration number, or full name when
they sign up you'll get $10 credit to your account. If two friends
sign up, $20. Three friends, $30. It just goes on and on. And now,
with Nationwide Dialup, you can recommend Cruzio to friends and family
around the country.
9. Bring In Cans for Late Fees
If you're late on a payment to Cruzio, turn it into a donation
to hungry folks in our community. We will waive your late
fee if you bring 3 cans into our office for our Second Harvest
Food Bin barrel. Learn more about this charity at
http://www.thefoodbank.org
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).
Dialup: 459-9408
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, Georgette, Tapati,
Alec, Stephen, Paul, Gershom, Jessi, Michael, another Chris,
Maria, James, Juana, Krissie, Nikkie, Mike, Mario, Don, Bruce,
Jason, Gabriella, Edgar, and Brian; Sebastian and Nick
(our fabulous interns); Jake, Annika, and Carly (the kids)
Carly, age 6, made a pair of bead-and-wire earrings at school
and gave them to me. When I put them on, she said "Oh Mommy!
You are beautifuller than a cow!"
