Cruzio Newsletter - Number 92, March 27, 2006
1. Cruzio Wins "Best ISP" Award for 12th Time
2. One Year in Watsonville
3. Workshops Coming Soon: Web Basics for Realtors, Wireless
4. Technical Services: Cruzio Customers $20 Off
5. Office Services in Santa Cruz
6. AT&T, Telecom-glomeration, and Us
7. Cruzio Hosting Local Chamber Event
8. Wednesday Workshops and Free Fridays in Watsonville
9. Buddy Bucks
10. Feed Hungry Folks Instead of Paying Late Fees
11. About This Newsletter
12. How to Reach Cruzio (dial-in or tech support)
1. Cruzio Wins "Best ISP" Award for 12th Time
Cruzio caught the Internet wave early, setting up shop 17 years
ago when "Internet" must have sounded like science fiction to most
people. It was years before the local papers put Internet providers
into their "Best of" questionnaires. But when they did, Cruzio
popped right to the top of the list. And there we have stayed.
We've just won our 12th "Best Internet Provider" award from
readers of the Santa Cruz Metro and, again, we'd like to extend our
gratitude to our members. We can express our thanks best by continuing
to get better, as we have every year. Cruzio has a wonderful team of
owners, employees, vendors and customers, almost all locally based,
and we will continue to do remarkable things.
In the last year we've added a new location in Watsonville,
remodeled our Santa Cruz storefront, started doing in-store service
for customer computers, and have erected ever-more-massive barriers
against viruses, spam, and other forces of evil out there on the
Internet. We've taught free or low-cost workshops nearly every month.
We have fantastic plans for the coming year -- stay tuned.
2. One Year in Watsonville
On March 12th, 2005, Cruzio held a big party in Watsonville to
open our new store. Since then, we've noticed that customers
from all over the county have visited our Watsonville location.
A lot of people find it handy for paying bills, asking questions
and renting computer time.
Like our Santa Cruz store, Cruzio Watsonville is an open and
welcoming center for computer and Internet technology.
Customers and non-customers alike stop in on Wednesday
afternoons for free workshops, and students drop in on Friday
afternoons for free computer rentals.
Watsonville, with capable store manager Gershom at the helm,
led the development of Cruzio's new office services -- printing,
CD-burning, faxing and using mini-cameras for online chat.
Our Santa Cruz store has followed suit.
We are glad to help people from all around Santa Cruz County
adapt to ever-new technology. Thanks, Watsonville, for the
warm welcome, and especially to El Pajaro CDC for helping us
and other businesses in the area!
3. Workshops Coming Soon: Web Basics for Realtors, Wireless
Two workshops coming up at Cruzio:
"Building an Online Presence for Realtors and Real Estate Agents"
Thursday, March 30, 12-1:30 PM $10.00 (This Thursday!)
Downtown Santa Cruz Store, 903 Pacific Ave. Suite 101
Real estate agents are welcome to a special edition of Cruzio's
popular Web Basics Brown Bag workshop, led by Cruzio's personable
Marketing Director Kathy Bisbee. She'll share tips on how to attract
and retain visitors to your real estate Web site, along with email
tools and advice for using the Internet to get and publicize information
about properties. Sign up, and order an optional lunch, at
http://events.cruzio.com
"Wireless for Home or Office"
Thursday, April 20, 12-1:30 PM $10.00
Downtown Santa Cruz Store, 903 Pacific Ave. Suite 101
Next month's workshop, on Thursday, April 20th from 12-1:30 pm will
be "Wireless for Home or Office." Come learn from the experts about
how to set up a convenient wireless network. The cost is $10, and
lunch is $7 if you wish to order it. This brown bag often sells out,
so register early at http://events.cruzio.com .
4. Technical Services: Cruzio Customers $20 Off
We've been doing in-store computer care at Cruzio for several
months now, and it's a popular service.
Our Spa packages are treatments we all really ought to give our
computers, but we don't have the tools or the time. Instead, we
work around popups and try not to mind how slow the computer runs.
If you bring your computer to Cruzio for a treatment, our
technicians will spend many hours cleaning viruses, adware and
spyware, and installing protective software. For a lot of
computers, it's like getting the machine back new again.
Some computers require extra work, so we've added another level:
the Super Spa package. The regular Spa Package has been expanded,
too. Cruzio customers get $20 off either package.
For Cruzio customers who are busy, or who find computers daunting,
we will also take in a computer to do a custom email install or
Internet setup for a small fee ($25).
All Cruzio Technical services are done at our Santa Cruz store. To
schedule care for your computer, please call us at 459-6301 and
select option 4. For more information, please see our Web page
at http://www.cruzio.com/services/tech_services/ .
5. Office Services in Santa Cruz
We recently doubled the number of our popular rental computers
in downtown Santa Cruz and replaced all the machines with new,
fast models. Plus, they are attached to our ultra-fast computer
network (when you are an ISP, you have the benefit of really fast
Internet connections). Following Watsonville's lead (see item 1,
above) our Santa Cruz store has added in-store office services
like burning CD's, printing, and sending faxes.
Cruzio's prices are the lowest around, and the convenience is
priceless. These services are available in both Santa Cruz and
Watsonville. Buy a prepaid rental card and you'll save 50% on
computer rentals. Students, teachers and seniors get an additional
discount.
6. AT&T, Telecom-glomeration, and Us
We were just getting used to the swallowing up of AT&T by SBC,
which then took the name AT&T, when the announcement came that AT&T
will now swallow BellSouth. How does this affect Cruzio and our
customers?
Cruzio purchases circuits wholesale from the corporation now known
as AT&T. We supply everything else -- email, servers, storage space,
network routing, security, technical support -- except the bare-bones
circuit. We are currently on a long-term contract with AT&T for these
circuits. We don't anticipate any quick changes in the status quo.
For the Internet as a whole, a truly competitive market is probably
the best way to get low prices and good service. The next best would
be having regulations protecting the public interest. Having neither
is probably the worst of the options: unregulated monopoly or
oligopoly.
Prices have been going steadily down, and the Internet which was built
by scientists and entrepreneurs is still running freely on public
utility lines. But there have been some ominous rumblings about tiered
content or making content providers pay transit. At Cruzio, we continue
to do what we can to keep the Internet low cost and open to everyone.
7. Cruzio Hosting Local Chamber Event
Wednesday, March 29, 2006, 5-7 PM
$5 for Chamber members, $10 for non-members
This Wednesday, Cruzio will open its newly repainted doors
to the Santa Cruz Area Chamber of Commerce. We'll be holding a
mixer and networking event, part of which will be a raffle
benefitting Second Harvest Food Banks's "Food for Children" program.
This program directly provides nutrition to many children at area
schools and housing complexes. The raffle prize will be a computer
Spa Package, which will rejuvenate your computer, along with some
relaxing goodies for the human as well. If you have a business in
Santa Cruz, you'll want to attend!
8. Wednesday Workshops and Free Fridays in Watsonville
Every Friday until June 12th, 2006, computer rentals are free of
charge for high-school or college students at our Watsonville store.
Take advantage of the opportunity to sit down and enjoy a high-speed
connection to the Internet.
And every Wednesday afternoon from 3 to 6 pm, you are welcome to visit
Gershom in Cruzio's downtown Watsonville store for a free workshop.
He'll be discussing various Internet and computer topics, and will
answer questions. As a bonus, attendees receive 2.5 hours of free
computer rental time!
These rentals and workshop are both at Cruzio's Watsonville store,
23 E. Beach Street, Suite 105, Plaza Vigil, Downtown Watsonville.
9. 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. There's no limit -- we appreciate
your referrals.
10. Feed Hungry Folks Instead of Paying 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 Bank barrel. Learn more about this charity at
http://www.thefoodbank.org
11. 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.
12. 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 (in Santa Cruz County): 459-9408
Nationwide Dialup: Look up local number on our Web page:
http://www.cruzio.com/support/dialup_isdn/nationwide_numbers.html
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,
to reach someone in customer service and technical support,
or to schedule in-store computer care.
722-6200 .......... Cruzio's number in Watsonville.
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 locations:
Santa Cruz: 903 Pacific Avenue, Suite 101, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Watsonville: Plaza Vigil, 23 E. Beach Street, Watsonville, CA 95076
Cruzio's hours:
Technical support: 8am - 6pm, Mon to Fri, 10am - 2pm Saturday
Sales hours: 10am-6pm, Monday to Friday; 10 am - 2 pm 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, Stephen, Paul, Gershom,
Jessi, Michael, Maria, James, Juana, Krissie, Nikkie, Mike,
Don, Bruce, Edgar, Brian, Westi, Andrew, Jaime, another Chris,
yet another Chris, and Nancy;
Melissa, our helpful intern;
Jake, Annika, and Carly (the kids)
Carly, age 8: "This toast is going to be famous for its butter."
