Cactus TurboNet Newsletter 5/1/06

 Verizon Email Blocking Rebate

If you have a friend using Verizon Online, let them know they may be entitled to a cash settlement.  Details are at http://www.emailblockingsettlement.com/ - it involves Verizon's blocking of emails from Europe and Asia between October of 2004 and May of 2005.

Your modem makes a difference

A customer brought in her computer because although it connected to the Internet, some web pages would not load, and her connection speed was low.  She lives in rural Colfax, at the end of a very long phone line.  When we connected her computer here at the store, the web pages loaded just fine.  But her connection speed was a little low even here (we know the usual connection speed from here, and she wasn’t getting it).  So we replaced her modem.  She chose a fairly expensive, very high quality modem, and when we tested it at the store, she got a good speed – nothing exceptional.  She took it home, and now all of her pages load, and her connection speed is 50% higher than she got with the old modem – she was very pleased.

Nowadays, most modems in new computers cost the computer manufacturer less than $5.00.  They work pretty well when you’re in town, over a good phone line.  But out of town, where the phone lines are marginal, you want something better.  Better ranges from $24.95 to about $70.00 at Cactus Computer.  The more expensive modems have more hardware to reject noise and boost signal.

Basic How-to Hint – Managing your email

We all have emails which we want to keep for a while.  For instance, when you put an ad for a boat in www.PalouseAds.com, you want to keep the confirmation email, because when you sell the boat, clicking the second link in the email removes the ad.  But leaving the confirmation email in your inbox may not be the best choice.  So you’ll want to create a folder in your email program to hold emails you want to keep – maybe several folders for various categories.  The process is similar in most email programs, but as an example, in Outlook Express, right-click on “inbox” and choose “New Folder”.  Give it a name, and that’s all it takes.  To move an email from the inbox to the “Ads” folder, just click down with the left mouse button on the subject of the email, hold down the mouse button while you drag the cursor over and drop it onto the “Ads” folder.

Free Web Accelerator

Our dial-up web accelerator is now included with the standard dial-up account.  Details are at www.TurboNet.com – the first article in the middle of the page.