Cruzio Newsletter - Number 75, May 13th, 2004
1. New: Cruzio High Bandwidth DSL 3.0
2. Anatomy of an Email Scam
3. Free Event for Local Consultants, Saturday May 22
4. Cruzio Wins Good Times Award: That Makes Ten
5. Santa Cruz Film Festival May 13 - May 21
6. Cruzio's New Billing System
7. Privacy, Ads, and Email
8. Come Visit Cruzio's Booth at These Upcoming Events
9. Buddy Bucks
10. Late Fees/Cans
11. Ray Talley: Goodbye to a Good Friend
12. About This Newsletter
13. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
1. New: Cruzio High Bandwidth DSL 3.0
Cruzio's new DSL 3.0 is even faster than our regular DSL (now
called DSL 1.5) and can accomodate more computers at once.
Speeds range from 1.5 to 3.0 Megabits per second when you are
downloading, and up to 416 Kilobits per second when you upload.
It's $49.95 per month, plus FUSF fee. And if you upgrade from
DSL 1.5, service is continuous (no downtime.) You'll experience
a gradual increase in speed after the switch is made.
The catch? It's not available to everyone. You must be within
9,500 feet of the phone company's equipment, even closer than
with lower speed DSL.
For more information, please visit our Web site:
http://www.cruzio.com/services/highspeed_access/3dot0_dsl.html
2. Anatomy of an Email Scam
Once a computer worm gets into your system, it can damage
your computer and spread to other computers around the Internet.
But before it can install itself, there is a human factor.
Most of the time, it has got to fool you into clicking on it.
The same is true with Internet theft -- schemes to get your
bank information or credit card number. They've got to fool you
first, and the scammers and spammers are getting good at it.
We've recently seen an email scam pretending to be from a major
bank, with a real-sounding Web address leading to a phony Web page
requiring you to enter a login and password (which the scammers use,
presumably, to empty your account.)
We've found email worms pretending to be from a system
administrator saying the you have a virus on your computer
and need to run the attached anti-virus program (the "anti-virus
program" is a virus.)
The "from" addresses are sometimes stolen from the same computer
where your address was picked up -- an infected computer that
has email from you in a mailbox. Presumably you correspond with
some of the same people as the infected computer. So the fake email
can look as though it's from a friend or colleague.
What can you do about all these scams? For one, turn on your
Cruzio spam filter. The examples of scams listed above were all
found in a mailbox of designated "junk" -- the filter caught
them and dumped them. It's easier to catch a scammer if the
server has already marked their message as spam.
But even Cruzio's excellent free filters cannot catch every
scam. So be alert. Be wary of typing your password onto a Web
page and never click on an attachment unless you absolutely
know what it is.
When unexpected email seems to come from a company you work
with, or from a friend, doublecheck. Shoot them a message and ask
if it's for real.
As for Cruzio, we'll continue to look for ways to protect members
from these Internet scams, and we'll be on hand to help if your
Internet service is affected. We'll also keep you informed of the
latest viruses, on our Web page:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/security/virus_info.html
3. Free Event for Local Consultants
Cruzio Consultants Network Workshop, Saturday, May 22nd, 12-3 pm
It's a Free Event with a FREE Lunch!
Cruzio customers often hire computer professionals and Web
designers. To better serve these consultants we've created the
Cruzio Consultants Network.
On Saturday, May 22nd, Cruzio will host a lunch for local consultants.
If you are a Web designer, or a computer or networking consultant, and
your clients use Cruzio's services, we think you'll find this event
very useful. Cruzio's staff will be represented by our Tech Support
manager and a Support staff member, as well as by Marketing staff
who've worked as consultants themselves. We'll be happy to hear
your ideas and answer your questions.
For more information, and to sign up, please go to:
http://www.cruzio.com/brownbag
4. Cruzio Wins Good Times Award: That Makes Ten
We won the Metro Goldie award last month, and now we've
won the Good Times Best Of Santa Cruz award as well. That
makes ten years for each of them! These awards come from
reader polls, so it's the public that's giving us support.
We owe it all to you, our customers -- we wouldn't be here
without you. Thank you!
5. Santa Cruz Film Festival May 13 - May 21
Tonight, Thursday May 13th, marks the start of the annual
Santa Cruz Film Festival. Cruzio is proud to be a sponsor.
Many films in the festival have been produced by local
artists, including Cruzio's own multi-talented Director of
Marketing, Kathy Bisbee, whose film, "Pow Pow Boom Boom"
shows on Sunday May 16th, 7 pm at the Del Mar Theater.
For more information on the films, the events, and the
schedule, please check the Web site:
http://www.santacruzfilmfestival.com
6. Cruzio's New Billing System
Cruzio's job is to remain in the background of your
Internet experience, seamlessly supplying the access
to move your data without making a ripple in your day.
To provide reliable, unflappable service is tiring work, and
beneath the surface staff at Cruzio are forever researching,
upgrading, rewriting, and repairing.
Now it's time for one of our biggest systems to get a much-
needed upgrade. We hope you will hardly notice, but it is
keeping Cruzio's staff pretty busy. We are upgrading our
billing system.
Customer requests have been one motivator for this change.
We hope to provide bills which are easier to understand.
But the biggest reason is simply that our old system is
too slow. We'd like our staff to be free to focus on customer
service, not waiting for a screen to refresh.
So expect to see some formatting changes in your bills
in the upcoming months -- you may get an extra statement
or see services described in a different way as we work to
achieve billing Nirvana.
7. Privacy, Ads, and Email
Other Internet Service Providers seem to be looking for profits
at the expense of customer privacy.
One new type of email service, for example, proposes to index all
your email and makes it searchable -- but along with that, the company
plans to use the search function to put ads into your email that
relate to the contents. Now that is creepy: every email is scanned
for content of interest to corporate advertisers. Not at Cruzio.
But some people don't seem to mind having ads attached to
their email. Most of the big Internet Providers attach their own
tag lines to the bottom of every message a customer sends. In
other words, every piece of email contains a little spam. These
customers are paying for the email service -- paying for the ads.
Not at Cruzio.
It's well known that many Internet providers sell customer names
and addresses to advertisers and marketing firms. Not at Cruzio.
When it comes to co-opting your email with advertising, or
reading your email, or selling your address, we just don't.
8. Come Visit Cruzio's Booth at These Upcoming Events
Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce Business Fair, "That 70's Expo"
Wednesday, May 26th from 4-7pm at the Cocoanut Grove
Visit http://www.santacruzchamber.org/bizfair04/ for details.
Santa Cruz Pride Rally, themed "Family Values"
Sunday, June 6th from 12-5 at the San Lorenzo Park.
Visit http://www.santacruzpride.org/ for more information.
9. Buddy Bucks
Recommend us to friends, family, colleagues: if a new customer
gives us your email address, registration number, or full name when
signing 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
with our nationwide numbers, you can recommend us to friends
all over the United States!
10. Late Fees/Cans
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
11. Ray Talley: Goodbye to a Good Friend
This from Cruzio Co-CEO Chris Neklason:
It is with profound regret that we learned that Cruzio member
Ray Talley passed away last week.
Ray was a gentleman in the very best sense of the word. His
membership with Cruzio extends more than a decade, back to
the "good old days" of the Internet. Ray was a regular in our
circa 1993 and 1994 "Wednesday Workshops" and a board member
and active participant with the Louden Nelson Senior Computer
Center.
When our daughter Annika was born, Ray and some other regulars
surprised us by taking over a workshop for a baby shower, to
celebrate this new life. It's one of our most treasured memories
of working here at Cruzio.
I last spoke with Ray a few weeks ago at the general membership
meeting of the Senior Computer Center. He looked in the best of
health, vibrant. As always, he was warm, friendly and, dare I
say, dapper. Ray carried himself as an aristocrat, royalty of
the dominion of sheer human goodness. As with all such, he was
humble, wise, and gentle-humored.
I read the paper every day, sometimes shaking my head at the
ignorance and brutality humans can visit upon each other, especially
lately. You know what I'm talking about. Ray was an excellent human
being, if I had to boil it down to a single, overriding quality,
I would have to say the great gift he contributed to the planet
while he walked upon it was simple, profound, human decency. In
his memory, and in these times, I pray we can all better emulate
his example.
Ray was family. To all of us, the human family. We miss him terribly.
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).
Dialup: 459-9408
Nationwide Dialup: Look up local number on our Web page:
http://www.flexpop.net/hub.php3?c=Locations&p=Numsearch
or call Cruzio toll free, 1.800.303.3302
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; Nick and Jay R (our
fabulous interns); Jake, Annika, and Carly (the kids)
I came into the dining room to see Carly, age 6, with scissors,
paper, and scotch tape.
Mom: "Are you doing a project?"
Carly: "I need to cut holes in this paper bag so I can go
deep into hiding."
