A. The Neighborhood Network is a small Information Technology company based in Quincy, IL. It is made up of a small group of Trusted Certified Information Technology Consultants. The Neighborhood Network is also known as a debt free company. It's partnerships and associations are based on actual years experience per specialist, not combined. Partnerships are developed and maintained by earning and sustaining real person-to-person trust and mutual respect. NeighborhoodNET has also left cronyism, the chamber of commerce, nepotism and the "last names" for the other technology businesses in your area to play on and exploit. Q. What types of services does NeighborhoodNET provide? A. We offer many types of proven services including the following.
What We Don't Offer - Excuses, poor workmanship, tardiness, rude comments, poor work ethics, lies, preying on ignorance, price gouging, pretentious staffing, deceptive billing practices, lame computer networks, spyware, computer worms, key loggers and virii, train wreck computers, spam, customer spying, inaccurate poorly presented and "politically correct" information. Sorry, no fairytales...we tell it like it is... What We Do Offer - Meritorious information, genuine client loyalty, stability, up front pricing and up front personalities, actual trusted computer networks, high performance, the benefit of any doubt to our clients, mutual respect, partnerships for life, the truth, non-sensationalized statements, courage to act in any situation regardless of the outcome, acting in our clients best interest and providing true privacy regardless of any legal issues. Note - In most cases when you meet a professional, you're actually meeting their "representative". With The Neighborhood Network, what you initially see, is what you will always get! Our primary objective is to educate consumers (both business and personal) about the Internet and other network options that they may not be taking advantage of. We also make our customers as independent from their ISP and Computer Company as possible. There are many services that companies offer at an additional cost to their customers that we feel should be free and we help our consumers get just that! The highest level of computer and network provider independence. Also, network security and trust is a major focus here at The Neighborhood Network. We believe that everyone has a right to privacy and we work to ensure that our customers have both private and secured connections. You wouldn't want your mailman reading your mail would you? So why should your ISP or web host to have access to your e-mail? We believe they shouldn't and that's why we work hard to educate our customers on how to make sure that their e-mail and other online activity remains private and secure. We're also in the market to keep computer companies and Internet service providers honest with their clients. We are always asked to sit between technology companies and their customers in order to keep the truth in play. This keeps businesses from overspending and falling prey to their own ignorance. We've saved our customers millions of dollars in consulting fees and infrastructures that they were not going to be able to take full advantage of. Q. Is NeighborhoodNET (The Neighborhood Network) an ISP? A. No. The Neighborhood Network is not an ISP. We do offer consumers Internet connectivity options through referrals to ISP's that we feel have the same focus on customer service and online freedom and privacy that we have. We strive to bring options to consumers that are outside of the local market. This gives customers more options and more freedom to choose. Just because your local ISP has told you that you cannot get something, does not necessarily mean that someone else can't bring it to you. We have done the legwork and research so you don't have to. Q. You're not like most companies in your line of work. Why? A. Because most companies feel that they need to belong to a specific class of business and stay in that class with other businesses of the like. Trying new things (diversifying) is rarely a though for most businesses with that type of mind set. Also, individual businesses that have the exact same qualities and services as the next one are known to either gouge or low ball their rate schedules to throw off their competitors and confuse potential customers. Mostly this is due to what the name of their company is or what their last names are, or how much "combined" experience the may claim to have. Another reason could be because of the marketing hype that they've created and the size of the building that they occupy. We strive to stay consistent with our corporate and personal clients and work smart and hard to keep mutual respect in play. So we guess that being consistent and adventurous could be some of the things that makes us unlike most companies in our line of work. We're a little different than the others in a lot of different ways. Q. Your site seems kind of personal. What's up with that? A. Well, we are people and we work on personal and business levels. There are other "personal" sites that are business based. The widely used GRC.com website is another good example of a "personal" site on the internet. Q. What is your customer retention percentage rate? A. 98%. We'd also like to add to this answer that unlike all other companies out there we genuinely admire our clients. The great and lasting relations we build with our clients are a direct result of personalities that are "of the like" working together. Also, we're very selective as to who we choose to help as trust and mutual respect are also not a given. Out of all the request for services that we receive, we actually end up turning down 87% of them as a result of less than perfect personalities claiming to need our help. This model of positive collaboration and auditing of potential clients is 110% more effective than the old ways of just letting anyone into our group. They spend their heard earned money with us because they know that they will get ACTUAL performance and EXACTLY what they want. The other 2% just aren't ready for us, or let alone themselves. We also totally avoid the temperamental customer Q. It seems like you don't care too much for ISP's or Computer Companies. Why? A. They're not all bad. It's mostly the refugees from a parent company that are the ones that are trying to put those who let them go out of business by trying to make a quick buck. But for the most part, as consultants we've witnessed those types of companies prey on ignorance when providing "services" to others. What we do is advise people then show them the industry standards in black and white through the use of books or accredited web sites on the subjects of information technology. We also provide a list of materials that you can look over when we initially meet with you and the materials in the list that we provide can be purchased anywhere without any kickback to us. We're also asked to sit between computer companies and businesses in order to debunk and audit the sellers work ethics on behalf of the potential buyers. This helps in verifying the licensing of software, the avoidance of pre installed spyware and key loggers, and many other questionable acts that certain companies perform in order to keep themselves in business. Computer companies and Internet Providers are nothing more to us than tools that we use in our day to day work activities. Q. What is your geographical reach? A. Unlimited! We can operate anywhere at anytime. Either In person, by e-mail, by phone, or by remote access. Q. I can see your network from home or my dial up account. But when I'm at work I can't. Why? A. The company that you work for is blocked at our firewall. They either called us and gave us a hard time about something or tried to test (attack) our network without authorization. Sorry, but tolerating a bully is not our game. It cost $300.00 to be removed from the firewall and requires a safe distance contract to be signed by the owner of the offensive IP bloc. Q. Is your company part of a franchise? A. No. We manage to stand on our own feet. Some "big" franchised IT businesses are nothing more than price gouging little people in high places. A franchise name provides only the illusion of strength with high overhead. Q. How secure are your systems? A. As you may or may not know, security is defined as the sum of all measures taken to prevent a loss. What we do as security conscious workers, is develop systems that present themselves and act as extremely hard targets, We also find ways to aggravate and insult the would be system cracker. We also expose all malicious and unauthorized connectivity attempts to the general public, thus violating the privacy of the would be cracker. Regardless of what your ISP or freestanding consultant says, no single system's security infrastructure is completely fool proof. Q. Do you have a referral program? A. Yes. We have a referral program for those who wish to generate extra revenue. In order to be in the referral program you must be a client of ours. It's easy to become a client. all you have to do is call and set up an appointment. Unfortunately, due to political and social engineering issues, computer companies and ISP's will not be eligible for this program. Q. Do you have any affiliations with any other local IT businesses? A. Fortunately, no. Mainly it's for security reasons and to maintain an environment free of government and outside business politics and personal political opinions. Social engineering is also big problem with computer and telecommunications companies that are affiliated. Especially if they share the same geographical footprint. Simply put, if you have a business relationship with an ISP and a computer company that are affiliated with each other, and your relationship goes south with either of them, one may choose to share privileged information about you to the other. That's if they haven't done so already. Also, a disgruntled employee or competitor within either institutions may see an opportunity to do damage in retaliation against their bully boss or a workplace that has poor and unfair working conditions (i.e. nepotism, preferential and prominent last names, employers children as staff in the workplace, etc.). A situation that could leave you open to many bad things. Unfortunately, if it happens to you, it's your fault! It's safe to say that we are immune to these situations. We do outsource to IT businesses from time to time that are friends of The Neighborhood Network. When this occurs, we are viewed as a product, not an employee to the contractors users. We're called when they run out of answers. Q. How can I tell if my web designer is reselling my account to another hosting provider? Are they actually hosting it themselves for me? A. We offer a service that analyzes the hosting system that your "provider" is currently implementing for your domain name. We can see past the virtual DNS that they may be implementing to hide the fact that they are not hosting the site themselves. Rather that they are or may be outsourcing your site to another hosting facility. The fee for this is $8.00 per domain. This service we offer keeps providers honest or exposed. The best thing to do is to acquire our evaluation of your hosting situation, then approach the provider with the information that we give you. Our evaluations are 100% guaranteed effective. Q. How can I tell if my web site was actually designed by the web site designer? I don't want anything front-page template driven. I want a one-of-a-kind site. A. We can help you with that by analyzing the source code and by implementing a couple of other tactics. The fee for this service is $3.00. Q. I'm not financial institution! Why do you feel that I need all of this security on my computer? A. I'll be happy to show you after you get out of prison for the kiddy porn that was injected into your system by crackers. The same ones that made the anonymous phone call to the feds about that illegal smut server that you were running on your networked workstation without your knowledge. An unsecured Windows platform is perfect for this type of terrorism and having a plain firewall doesn't cut it anymore. We implement transparent endpoint security in such a way that you can't tell that your system is secured. That is outside of the test you may wish to run through a security auditing service. This is another thing that we keep simple. Also, The hardest thing for us to get past is the fact that everyone wants internet security, but very few people actually want to use it or have it implemented. They say that it's too much of a hassle. We just say that they have a choice. Q. If I need help with my IT systems or need to acquire a new system, what can you do for me? A. We can completely overhaul your computer systems and set them up to roll back to their previous states should a situation arise. Also, considering that people sometimes need on demand services and that we do set a timely TTR (Time To Repair) on all of our home grown systems. Any downtime is few and far between. We set up and service the systems that we implement in such a way that 95% of the time our physical presence is not needed should a situation occur. The other 5% we drive or our pilot takes us to your location. As a new customer you will need a service contract to insure mutual commitments and respect. As far as new systems go, we can point you in the right direction and make other recommendations as to what equipment to buy and how to properly administer your new infrastructure. Q. Can I host my own web site and e-mail at my home or office? A. Yes, with non recurring charges outside of your monthly broadband connection if you have business-class broadband. Business-Class meaning Ethernet, SDSL, T-1 or leased line. Check out the Broadband Buyers Checklist. Q. What are the benefits of hosting web and e-mail services on my own? A. True independence from your ISP or Web hosting provider. The only concern you would have is maintaining server security and insuring its connectivity. This also offers a layer of security from your ISP. None of the e-mail that goes to you or your customers lands on their ( your ISP's) system. It lands on yours. Another advantage to having your own server is that you can provide web services to others for a fee or some other type of compensation. This would in turn give you a return on your investment. Eventually your Internet connection, initial server hardware and network will be paid for on a monthly basis. You can look for future profits by hosting on your own! We can show you how! Q. I saw an ad for business priced ADSL. Should I get it for my office? A. Under no circumstances is ADSL (CRAP) to be considered any form of business class connectivity. The reason is that ADSL NEVER comes with Service Level Agreements. SLA's are one of the most important attributes of business class connectivity and if you decide that you want business class you should verify with the provider that a SLA is a core service for your new circuit. Certain providers in the US and locally are offering ADSL and wireless at quasi-symmetrical speeds. That's why we recommend going with an actual provider such as New Edge Networks, Covad, or AT&T. Something that provides a nationwide footprint, committed information rates, real IP assignments and one that has plenty of money in the bank. If you call or e-mail us about connectivity we'll be glad to talk with you about your options. If you are interested in true business-class internet gateway connectivity services, call us at (312) 242-1691. We'll help you make the right choice. Q. A local ISP is offering me a long term contract for DSL service. Should I sign up? A. No. A long term (anything over 1 year) service contract is only a ploy to keep you from going to a better service or one of their competitors. It has no advantages in the log run. You might get installation at a reduced rate or an extra month free. However, if a better service that is less expensive comes along, you would find yourself out of luck in acquiring it unless you wanted to pay for two service providers. Heavy early termination penalties apply to multiyear contracts if you were to terminate your contract early. Like they say, Advances in technology can happen overnight! In short, don't sign one, don't even look at one. Q. Why is the hardware that my ISP sold to me so expensive? A. There could be a number of reasons. They may be resellers of the networking hardware company and you could be paying up to 20% above list price or more. You can check all pricing information for your computer networking hardware at Price watch or Price grabber. Other reasons may be that they have a contract with the manufacturer to buy so many units or some other special interest issue that is causing it to be relatively high. Just check the prices before calling a potentially new Internet service provider and get a price quote on the hardware that they provide. Some ISP's will allow you to provide your own hardware which can save you a small fortune. The downside to that is that you can't get free support for the hardware that you bring during the provisioning (setup) process or any needed future technical support. This is where we come in to the picture. Q. I see DSL prices ranging $50.00 all the way up to $300 per month in my area. Is it all the same service quality? A. No, Business and Residential Digital Subscriber Lines are different in many ways, not just in price. Internet Service Providers that lean on being the cheapest in their area and boast about high customer coverage use their lowest priced "DSL" services to snowball potential customers. Meaning that they want the customer to believe that all DSL is the same. Except for theirs, which may happen to be cheaper. We promote the facilitation of sharing your circuit with friends and neighbors to offset the cost and profit from your business class internet account. There are many common and uncommon ways to share your network access and with that we help countless individuals and groups see and feel their returns. For information on the DSL medium we encourage those who want to know the truth to visit DSL Reports.Com and get real answers. Q. Can I become a service in my neighborhood to provide Internet access to my neighbors? A. You want to provide a Neighborhood Network? YES! We can show you how to get around obstacles, including any regulations that phone companies and ISP's may have and sweep most, if not all of the provisioning problems to the side. A Neighborhood Network is one of the many things that "commercial network providers" don't want you to know about. Plus the hardware is very inexpensive and just as comparable as the business class hardware if configured properly. Q. My ISP is offering wireless Internet access. If I get it can I share it? A. Yes, you can share it locally or 50 miles away. You can make a great profit by providing Internet access to others by sharing. If your ISP has a policy that does not allow you to share your connection for some reason, we recommend that you let your feet and wallet do the talking. Find one that does. The technology exists to share connectivity, so why not? Q. Why do you make your firewall logs public information? A. To expose the source IP address assignments and nodes to the public regarding their type of network activity towards our systems. Basically, if they try to connect to our servers or other computer systems in a way that we see as an intrusion attempt, or other reasons that the system is not meant to be connected to, we expose the illegal connection attempt to the public. We reserve the right to expose any activity to the general public when it comes to maintaining our network stability. The ports that we allowing to pass are now on a need to know basis. Any port scan or other port connection will be flagged and displayed on our firewall logs page. The URL for the logs is located here. From time to time we also create a .Pdf of our logs. The link is here for a more organized and detailed list of intrusion attempts. If you wish to discover the identity of any of the source IP addresses or the governing ISP's, go to Arin and cut and paste the address into their search box. Let us know what you find. This is completely legal. Also, you can read about false positives if it is a concern you have regarding Internet connections. Q. Sometimes I get an e-mail attachment that has been renamed. Why? A. This action is taken by our security system to help prevent known and unknown threats from penetrating our network and the networks that we design and deploy for our clients. All of our e-mail systems have a list of potentially dangerous file attachment extensions that our system uses to flag and rename files. A good practice is that if you are expecting a file to be sent through e-mail as an attachment to you, the sender should notify you in advance as to what the name of the file is and what it is intended use is. If the file you are expecting is from a known valid source, scan the file with Anti virus software after it is received, then rename it to its original file name. If you have Zone Alarm installed on your computer, it will give you a list of options on how to handle the file attachment through its Mail Safe facility. Download ZoneAlarm Pro now. (Forums) Q. Why do you use an E-mail Blacklist? A. We use a combination of different tactics to help avoid e-mail abuse towards our users. We do this through the use of blacklisting specific spam gang domains, IP addresses that belong to known spamming organizations or ISP's that support spammers, and DNS servers that are known to belong to mail abusing groups. If a valid user is ever rejected they are sent a link through e-mail on how to resolve the blocked e-mail transmission. We feel that e-mail itself is a poisoned medium and that there is no real right way to go about securing it outside of facilitating encryption or a private generic top level domain within your organization. E-mail blockers (snake oil) and other spam guards merely let you see the spam before you download any e-mail. If you still see it in the first place, then you've already been spammed. We are on a "whatever it takes" mission to heal the e-mail medium as far as our end of things are concerned. If you were to ask anyone else or any other outside groups on e-mail abuse prevention tactics you would get twelve different answers or opinions from seven different people. Q. Why do you trust services like spamhaus.org and other anti-spam services? A. Services like the ones listed on our e-notice page have been very reliable. Every day you put faith in services that reside inside and outside of your organization. Services like your ISP, your virus protection program, or your system administrator. What we do is offer white listing services to those incoming e-mail servers that are marked as abused and blacklisted. That way if there is an e-mail that bounces we help make it right between the two parties. We do investigate the situation thoroughly. And, unlike most providers, we never turn a blind eye. Q. Can I get e-mail services through the neighborhood network? A. Absolutely! You can use one of our many domains as your e-mail address or you can provide your own domain. You can have Pop3, Web Based (webmail), HTTP Mail (limited to 5 megabyte e-mail boxes), and forwarding. You can also set up an account to collect e-mail from other pop3 accounts that you might have with other providers. Pricing is only $60 per year. Q. I'm curious about your systems. Can I run a test on them? A. Unless you want to be blocked at our firewalls, no. It's very expensive to get unblocked. $300 per IP and or domain. This includes the fact that other forms of ill natured communications with our company will get the ISP that you use blacklisted across all of our DNS zones. We also quietly make every effort to have you thrown off of your internet access providers network as a "thank you" for your unauthorized network evaluation attempt. Your IP assignments will also be included in a real-time DNS blacklist (rbl.spatialrift.com) which is in use by the general public until we can physically verify that your ISP account has been terminated. So, be careful on what you try to do to us, the e-mail that you try to send to people might start bouncing or your circuit might fall off of the network. Again, "Testing" is a form of preemptive malicious activity as far as we're concerned. Q. When I go to a web site on the Internet, why does it take so long for some pictures to load in my web browser? A. The first thing you look at is the author of the web site and/or the creator of the images. Being that the majority of Internet users are non-broadband really has an effect on how a web site is designed, or a graphic image is prepared for online presentations. Poorly designed sites and graphics take forever to download. A good rule of thumb is that a homepage on a healthy dial up connection should take only 10 seconds or less to render. Just chalk it up to poor design. Some designers are known to expect other web surfers to have DSL, or other forms of high throughput connectivity to view their sites or images. We simply don't believe in that since we feel that everyone should have an equal opportunity to efficiently view the web. If you need your site optimized for speed and content, we can help for a lot less than others would charge. Q. I've noticed that there are some places on the Internet that I can access and other places that I can't. Why? A. We could go on and on about this but I'll try to narrow it down to a few specifics. First, your ISP may be blacklisted or the IP address that you are currently assigned to use through your ISP is blacklisted as the result of a user abusing the IP address that you now have. If it is blocked you will not be able to connect to that particular server or other facility within that organization. This is something that your ISP has to resolve. Migrate to another ISP if the problem persist. Another reason could be that there is a break in the Internet somewhere. Most likely with your ISP's upstream provider or the network that the destination computer that you are trying to connect to is off line. Most of the time this is temporary. One more common reason is that you may not be connected to the Internet or if you have a personal firewall it could be blocking you or the content of a site. You can call us for technical support regarding these issues if you are currently a customer or wish to become one. Q. You have a domain name that I'm interested in using. How can I use it? A. It would depend on what you are wanting to do with it. Only the end user can request a domain name from us, not the hosting provider or the web developer. All domain names that we hold in trust may be leased to a third party as long as they're used in good faith. We also decide if you qualify to use it based on what your preexisting site presents itself as. The domain names that we carry were acquired several different ways. They were either abandoned by their previous user or they were dangerously close to their expiration dates and had to be renewed. Or, they weren't federally trademarked. Some were acquired through a last minute decision from the previous end user not to roll out a web site. At this point we lease them for $39.95 per month or $400 per year. If you choose to have full discretion over the domain we can transfer it to you or your business. The transfer itself is not a sales event and can range anywhere from $400 to $1,500 or more based on the appraised transfer value of the domain name. We keep their appraised values on record internally within our network. All request for domain use must be made in writing via US postal service. A. DNS Life is a project that allows the facilitation of a Private generic Top Level Domain Name System. To find out more about it, visit UniqueRoot.com. Q. How can I contact your group? A. Call (312) 242-1691 or visit us at NeighborhoodNET. If you would like us to call you, drop us an e-mail with your name, phone number and best time to call. This will save you any long distance charges. You can also e-mail questions to service @ neighborhoodnet.net. You can send correspondence to 2043 Elm St., Quincy, IL 62301. You may contact us monday through friday from 9 am to 4 pm central. If you carry a service contract with us you may call anytime. Q. I need to move my network to a better provider. But I have too many IP address assignments. What Can I Do? A. Don't let your ISP or computer company fool you into thinking that you're stuck with them. We know the ropes. You can transfer your Internet Protocol Address assignments to another access provider or organization by calling us. We'll walk you through the process if needed. Q. What are your rates for consultations and services? A. Our rates for non-initial consultations are based on performance since most computer companies feel that their presence alone warrants payment regardless of the outcome of their visit. We offer a flat hourly rate of $44.00, and two service contract options for computer networks. The service contracts mandate prioritization, minimum time to repair (TTR's) and reduced rates on support calls. Since we get the job done right the first time every time, what would normally cost you between $65 and $125 per hour or more with the typical computer company or other technology firm, you would end up spending $12.50 per half hour through the facilitation of a prioritized service contract. If you shop around you'll find that it is impossible to find this performance-based convenience from a trusted source. Check out our unsolicited testimonials on our home page to see the true value in real service and client retention. We offer an updated 20 hour yearly contract for $500.00 and a 10 hour yearly for $320.00. All Cancellations for Initial consultations require a one week notice. Q. My Computer just stopped working. Why do system crackers want to crash my computer? A. Well, we would give you a lame parental excuse such as "because" or "that's just the way it is". But really, who needs to be reminded of bad slow spinning yo-yo parental upraising tactics. Rather, system crackers don't need a reason. They just need software that can be used in a malicious way along with poor parental supervision and shame-based emotions running rapid through their families. These elements are part of the formula that compiles a computer cracker. Crackers constantly try to validate self or parental imposed insecurities. A.K.A. Someone who was told yes every time they wanted something from a parent, etc. The best thing to do is take the law into your own hands and secure your systems the best way you know how to. Call us to learn their tactics and how to minimize your risk in the online world. Q. Is my ISP watching me? Do I have anything to worry about? A. Yes! Your ISP and the Feds can snoop in on you anytime they feel like doing so unless you have effective measures in place. They can do a lot of nasty things to you if they felt the "need to investigate" your activities. That's if they have enough customers to offset the balance if you were to catch on and migrate to another provider. They can and do track your online activity through the websites that you resolve on your computer's web browser, Intercept copies of your outgoing e-mail, and many other questionable acts that we have discovered through our experiences working for ISP's in the past. People have asked us about services like anonymizer and other anonymous proxy services. We think that they're all fine. The only thing you have to worry about is the operators of the proxy services themselves tracking you. We tell people that if they are ever confronted by an ISP and are wrongfully accused of malicious activity to just say that they have a wireless access point behind a firewall router and someone from the outside hijacked an ip address from their access point. This usually ends up forcing the ISP to run for a box of Kleenex. Just make sure you have the hardware in place just in case they decide to bum rush your house with the feds hanging out of their rear end. We can show you how to completely shut them out. Here are a few tips: 1.) Run your own DNS resolver locally within your LAN and point all of the machines TCP/IP DNS settings on your LAN to that DNS server. This way, they can't see all of the sites that you resolve on your workstation. It will also prevent your provider from poisoning the DNS. that you use. 2.) Use a vpn to a proxy that is not on your ISP WAN connection. 3.) Use e-mail encryption and encourage those that you communicate with to do the same. 4.) Use self-generated SSL certificates for your web servers. You won't want anyone else having the key to them if that concerns you...And we mean ANYONE! 5.) Harden your wireless access points with passkeys and not passwords. Keep them at 65 characters or higher. 6.) Don't accept phone calls from total strangers requesting personal or network information. Q. I can't seem to find the right domain name for my business. Can you help me? A. We have helped many individuals and business people find the right meaningful domain name to best solve their website addressing issues. Since we observe and respect a trademark holders rights regarding internet domain names, we never suggest any familiar sounding names to the people that we provide domain name consultations to. However, if a mark is found to be dropped and there are no intellectual property issues with that particular string of characters, we help those acquire the rights to that particular mark. We charge $22.00 for domain name consulting and appraisals. Q. The internet seems to bring out the worst in people. why? A. The internet has a way of bringing out a lot of different forms of behavior in people. Mainly because of it's convenience, or it's ability to make a user anonymous. Usually when a user has a sense of security and a "I'll never get caught for this" mind set, they feel the sense of relief of being able to be their true self. Think about it. Would you yell obscenities at someone who was 500 feet away or someone who was within arms reach? Q. You seem to be trading on fear when it comes to the subject of ISP privacy. Are you? A. Actually we're trading on fact. As long as the RIAA have their claws buried in your service providers back and the FBI's mass-monitoring tool exist within or around your ISP, your ISP will roll over on you like a Jeep just to save their own backsides. The thing that ISP's really prey on is the possibility that you may be too believing that they would never spy on you. Or that they would never have a good enough reason to eavesdrop in on your online activities. They may also prey on your laziness to implement encryption for your e-mail and website connectivity sessions. You may say that you have nothing to hide but that's not the point. The point is that nobody has any business being in your business for any reason unless you want them to. It's usually the folks that co-opt 9/11 as an excuse for everything that they can't accomplish or take control of who have a problem with you having online privacy. Updated GRC link. Q. I'm having problems sending e-mail to one of the domains that you host. What's the problem!? A. Since we're not willing to dumb our system down to make up for an administrator's or isp's lack of competence, go to this page an read the entire notice. If you are not sure what it means, contact your provider and pass it along to them. If they don't understand it then you should migrate your domain to our servers or have us redesign your infrastructure as our DNS records and other services have no red marks or other critical compliance issues. To check the status of your domain's DNS configuration, go to this site and enter in your domain name in the left hand box. Then compare our DNS records with your domain's current configuration. This facility will allow you to see how compliant your system is to true internet standards regarding your DNS issues. Also, outsourcing your e-mail services can cause many problems with DNS consistency issues. (rfc's). If you see any excessive yellow or red marks on your DNS report give us a call. If you are an adams.net user and your e-mail is failing to pass through our network you should migrate your domain to a trusted provider. A system that is configured by an RFC ignorant individual or group works as a spammers playground. Q. Why are you blocking my advertisements? I have a right to e-mail anyone I wish! A. No you don't pal! E-mail is a privilege. Not a right. Being able to randomly e-mail people with your unsolicited e-mail offers is not in any form a right. Nor is it a free speech issue if we choose to block you. If it were, I could run into a movie house and yell "fire" with impunity when in fact there is no fire. I Tell ya what, I'll blacklist your domains and when you come back with a copy of the bill of rights stating that you can SPAM anyone, anytime, with your useless slow-spinning bandwidth burning crap, we'll lift the block. But until then you're banished. Q. I want to outsource my business network to a computer company. Is that a good Idea? A. Well, unless you really trust them as individuals and not so much as a business, no. By outsourcing your network in having a third party "manage" your systems, you're opening the door to many types of possible privacy invasions and other losses. We get to know people on a individual and personal level before we allow any out sources to come in to our managed systems program. We also strongly encourage the use of data encryption for all types of communications. Ask your computer company if you can have root (full discretion) access to your managed system and see what they say. This also falls under the issues of social engineering in protecting your confidential business information. Q. I thought we were buddies. Why did you send me a bill for the work that I had you do? A. Please pay us, so we can pay them, so they can pay you. Q. My dialup connection is really slow. What can I do to speed it up? A. There are several things that you can try. First, make sure you are doing business with the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) in your area that provides your regular phone service. This would be the company that all other phone services in your area buy their telephone lines from and then resell them to residential and business users. In order to find out who the ILEC is, you may have to call your phone carrier and ask. You can try asking your phone carrier to test for noise and other audible interferences on your phone line. Maybe try using a really good external modem that uses a serial port. we've found that the Zoom line of modems clean up a lot of problems regarding noise and other interferences. You'll also need to make sure that your operating system is in good shape and your modem firmware is up to date. If these tips are not helpful, change ISP's to see if that makes any difference in your line speed. Q. I have to send some large files to a customer. How should I go about doing so? A. I wouldn't advise using e-mail as it is not a file transfer protocol (FTP). We limit our e-mail attachment file sizes to one megabyte and asking us to modify our smtp server to allow anything more will be asking us to dumb our security system down. If you need to send large files we advise you to use a convenient free peer-to-peer file sharing application or Instant messenger. Instant messenger is free and is as easy as dragging and dropping a file from your desktop to a user name in your IM client. Your ISP may allow bandwidth to be wasted and abused via large e-mail file attachments so you should try using your free ISP e-mail account if you wish to send monolith files using e-mail. Our system at one time was used to send and receive illegal mp3's and we took file limiting measures to stop and deter any future system abuses. We will consult with you on the subject of secure legal file sharing if you wish to pursue active file transfers between you and your clients. Keep in mind that all business information can be read by your ISP and known or unknown third parties if you choose not to secure your data. Q. What happens if I don't back up my system files on a regular basis? A. Simply put. If you do not have a system recovery and security plan in place, your data is at risk of being lost or stolen. Also, data recovery can be quite pricey. Most places start their rate schedules at $1,500 for data recovery services and services such as this are rarely performed overnight. It can also be expensive to hire a tech to reinstall your system or attempt to recover your information from a damaged storage medium. The best thing to do is to make daily backups of your systems to avoid any prolonged downtime and technical support events. We can help you manage a data backup routine and crisis response so that if and when a situation occurs, you will be able to roll your system back to pre-incident condition. Q. I received an e-mail from someone who claims to know me. How do I tell if it is legitimate? A. The best way to authenticate an e-mail message from someone that you have never met is to see if the message that you received is digitally signed. Digital e-mail signatures are a near perfect utility of verifying a users identity through a trusted third party. Trusted third parties such as Verisign and Thawte are excellent choices for acquiring an e-mail signing certificate. Let us know if you're interested in becoming trusted online. Q. I got an e-mail from someone today claiming to be from an online business. But their e-mail address doesn't match their domain. Is it legit? A. No. Unless it is digitally signed consider it spoofed e-mail and discard it without looking at it. It could save you $$$ in tech support calls or visits in repairing your computer from an unknown worm or virus. That is if your e-mail server has no safeguards in place to prevent malicious activity towards your email account. If you are going to have an online business you must use your domain, not your hosting provider or ISP's domain name in your e-mail address. Also, using your domain helps to authenticate your presence in the online world to others that wish to communicate with you. No, not by the traditional ways anyway. We save hundred of dollars per month as a result and still keep the numbers in the green. The bad thing about traditional advertising is that if you decide to stop running your ad with a local newspaper, television or radio station, it leads others to think that if the ads stop, so has your business. Which with us is not the case and it never will be. This is how ad agencies and distributors keep making the big bucks. BY THEM APPEARING TO KEEP YOUR BUSINESS ALIVE! We do agree that there are effective and ineffective ways to advertise. And maybe we can help steer you in the right direction regarding onlie advertising. Our group is found and employed by word of mouth and URL links to our parent site. Q. I'm interested in learning how to fix my customers computer problems. I want you to show me so I don't have to call you again. A. If you are a computer company, we'd be more than happy to show you how as long as you'd be happy to allow us to add a zero or two on to our hourly rate. Payment is at time of service. Q. I have an e-mail server and I want to add a secondary smart host for it. Do you offer e-mail smart hosting as a service? A. Yes, We offer that to anyone who needs extra redundancy for their e-mail systems. You'll have to call for pricing as it is provisioned on a case by case basis. You'll also need to add additional records to your dns zone(s) to support our smart hosting system. You can also get secondary and tertiary dns services through us to boost performance of your entire domain name system. Q. I see this offer to install a free toolbar in my web browser. Should I do it? A. No. To us toolbars are to spyware and adware as e-mail marketing is to spam. They're too questionable and uncertain as to what their motives are. It's better to just use a search engine to find what you are looking for. Toolbars can also be invasive and hard to uninstall. Some are known to slow down your system as well. We never suggest installing any type of toolbar in your web browser just to be safe. Q. What equipment should I own and should I have full control over it in order to access my ISP? A. You need to own and have full control of everything on your network. Including the hardware that you use to access an ISP. Some ISP's will have you believe that you need certain equipment that they endorse and have a special interest in to access their system. They'll sometimes lead you to believe that they need to have full discretion on how it operates on your network in order to maintain "stability". This it totally not the case in any situation. The reason certain ISP's have this agenda is to prey on a users ignorance and to maybe gain unauthorized control of the end users network. ISP's also commit these acts to keep track on who the end user employs to work on their systems. Also to help lock themselves in to a particular business and to create additional revenue streams as a result of an "unauthorized tech damaging 'their' network". Thus adding the ability to charge the unknowing customer the price for a service call to fix the "problem" that the ISP originally created. They may also try to rent the customer premise equipment to the end user; definitely something to look out for. The best thing to do is to employ a trusted Information Technology Professional to keep the ISP or other form of internet access provider honest. Remember that the ISP stops at their antenna and/or their wire; everything else belongs to you, or should at least. If you were to attempt to change providers it would be very difficult if they owned your network or even a small yet crucial piece of it. They'll just tell you to read your contract if you don't like it. Which now for some unnamed ISP's it seems to be the trend. Also remember to stay away from long term Internet Service Provider contracts and free equipment. You will regret it like many others have if and when a better service comes along. Give us a call if you feel that you require an evaluation or are just curious of your situation. We may be able to help you break your long term contract. Q. We need help building and maintaining our IT systems. Can we hire you to help us get it off the ground? A. Yes. You may use us as a temporary outsource as your trusted IT department. A service contract is required and will be crafted based on your wants and needs. Most find this approach to incubating their IT systems very convenient. It's due to the fact that we're a trusted source and they don't have to hire and maintain a new employee. which can sometimes be a liability. In all cases this is construed as a liability-free pa |
