Email Forwarding—Not such a good idea anymore
Email forwarding is the process of having all the mail that comes to johndoe@crocker.com automatically sent to an alternative address such as johndoe@yahoo.com. People have been forwarding email addresses since email began and up until recently, it’s been a convenient tool for the user. (It should be noted for clarification, automatic email forwarding is NOT the same as manually forwarding an email message inside your email program.)
As email networks continue to grow, unfortunately, so does spam and the level of sophisticated technology used to deliver it. Administrators of email networks across the globe are waging a constant battle to protect their users from unwanted junk email. Now, spammer tactics have pretty much ruined email forwarding for legitimate users.
One of the latest tools administrators have had to implement is Sender Policy Framework (SPF) to prevent spoofing. Spoofing is a process that spammers use to generate messages that appear to originate from third party domains like ebay.com, yahoo.com or crocker.com instead of their own.) If you’ve received an email appearing to come from a well-known address, only to discover later that it’s spam or as an owner of a domain, irate users have contacted you demanding to know why you’re spamming them, then you’ve experienced the spoofing process first hand.
While SPF helps reduce a significant majority of forged spam, it also breaks email forwarding. Any Internet Service Provider (ISP) using SPF to help protect their users from spam will block a forwarded message being sent from another ISP using SPF. AOL and gmail are two large ISPs that use SPF. If a user has their Comcast email forwarded to their AOL address and a gmail subscriber sends an email to the Comcast address first, that particular email message will be blocked by AOL and never received at the AOL address.
Crocker recommends that all of our Internet subscribers work towards removing any forwards they have in place, so desirable email will not be blocked and lost. Crocker also recommends that you reconfigure your email program to download email directly from Crocker. All Crocker customers have access to Webmail and can easily retrieve their email from any location with Internet access and a web browser. Our Customer Care staff is available to address any questions you have concerning downloading, mail forwarding or Webmail.
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Away from the office? Going on a trip? Please think twice about using auto reply/away messages.
Many of us have gotten into the habit of setting up an auto reply message when we’re going away and won’t be able to respond to email for a time. It’s been a convenient way to let everyone know you’re not ignoring them but are otherwise occupied and will respond after a given date.
An unfortunate side effect of the auto reply is that every spam message that slips though also gets a response. This action can let the spammer know there’s a live person attached to your address and can subject you to more spam from that sender in the future. Who needs that aggravation?
It takes a bit more effort, but a safer method is to create groups in your address book and send an away message before you leave. Not only are you taking another step to minimize spam, it’s a smart personal and home safety measure as well.
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Reduce the time and energy you spend deleting spam. It’s easy to
customize your own spam filter settings.
Spam has grown to epidemic proportions—our network engineers and programmers can attest to that. They make adjustments to the mail servers on a regular basis to counteract an ever-increasing amount of spam. On the Crocker network, more than 2 million email messages are passed through our spam filters each day, before they arrive in a customer's mailbox. . Incredibly, less than 2% of these messages are legitimate. Because spam can be such a nuisance, we’d like to remind you that we’ve given you access to the tools you need to personally adjust your own filters to match your tolerance for any unwanted mail that may get through.
You can access your filter settings at the Spam Firewall page but if you are unsure of how to make the adjustments, there are Robo Demos available that can take you through the process at our Support page. Click on “Spam Firewall” menu on the left, then “Walkthroughs” at the top (center of that page). All Crocker customers already have the ability to use this feature, but if you’re logging in for the first time, you will have to create an account on the Spam Firewall. A password will then be sent to you via email. Using this password, you can login and customize your own individual Spam settings. You will be able to select the filter settings as well as blacklist and white list individual addresses if you desire.
We encourage you to try the Robo Demos as they were created specifically for the purpose of helping our customers enhance their use of email and the Internet. The instructions are also posted in pdf format so you can print them for easy reference. You should find this helpful but we don’t want to leave anyone frustrated, so please contact Customer Care if you need personal assistance.
They’re here to help!
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Call Crocker before you change your telephone service—Your DSL and telephone service are linked to each other.
by Paul Zichichi
With the recent advancements in telephone service and proliferation of new telephone providers in the Valley, many consumers are giving serious consideration to their budgets and the cost of their phone service. While this makes sense, it can lead to many unforeseen consequences for DSL customers because DSL service is linked specifically to your address, phone number and provider.
When Crocker standard DSL is ordered for a customer, we send a request to Verizon to add DSL service to a customers’ home or business phone or fax number. If that customer changes their phone service or number after the DSL service is turned on, the DSL service literally breaks. This can cause a great deal of inconvenience and stress generating early cancellation charges ($79), provisioning fees ($60) or new installation bills ($129.95) that could have been avoided.
Similar problems may also pop up when customers move, taking their phone number with them. When the phone company disconnects your phone service at the old address, it also breaks the DSL service. When they turn the phone number on at the new address, unfortunately, they do not automatically restore DSL service with it. In some cases, DSL service may not be deliverable at the new address and will also generate a cancellation, bringing those early cancellation charges with them.
The best way to make sure your DSL, or your budget, does not suffer when you move or change your phone, is to contact Crocker first. Let us know what your plans are and we’ll work with you to make sure that we can continue to provide the same level of service and support no matter where life takes you.
Editor's Note: Paul is a graduate of Seton Hall University with a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature. Before joining the Crocker Customer Care team, he worked as an Information Technology consultant with a local Northampton firm. In his spare time, he enjoys music and rebuilding computers.
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Important Information for Zoom X6 Wireless Modem Users
Crocker Communications Customer Care Support has received a few calls from customers with the Zoom ADSL X6 Model 5590 - Modem/Router/Firewall/4-port Switch plus Wireless Access Point modems concerning repeated loss of Internet connectivity. Power cycling (turning the modem off and then back on) can be used to be re-establish connectivity. This problem does not appear to be affecting any other models of Zoom modems.
Zoom Technologies has informed us that an upgrade to the most current modem firmware should eliminate the problem. If you are a Crocker DSL customer with a Zoom X6 wireless modem AND have experienced frequent loss of connectivity to the Internet, we ask that you check to ensure that your modem’s firmware is up to date. The most current version of the X6 is 2.0.4.
For directions on how to check the firmware version of your Zoom X6 wireless modem and if necessary, to upgrade the firmware, please go to our Crocker Customer Care site. Click on DSL Services and then click on Firmware Update at the top of the page.
As always, Crocker Customer Care Associates are available if you have further questions or need assistance with the upgrade.
Support Hours: Mon-Fri 8am-8pm
Email: support@crocker.com
Local Phone Numbers: Springfield 654-1000, Greenfield 475-1000, Northampton 387-1000
Direct Link: https://support.crocker.com
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Get DSL Internet access without a phone line!
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is technology that provides Internet connectivity and conventional telephone voice service over the same copper line. Along with an increase in Internet connection speeds, DSL allows simultaneous use of the telephone and an online computer—definitely an advantage of speed and convenience when compared to a dial up Internet connection.
Traditionally, an active line from the telephone company was a prerequisite for obtaining DSL. Now DSL Internet connectivity is available without an activated conventional telephone landline. This is called Standalone DSL and is also referred to as naked DSL.
Standalone DSL might be of particular interest to those who use cell phones as their primary means of voice communications. It can provide a cost savings because there is no longer a need to pay the telephone company for the added expense of an unused telephone service.
Standalone DSL can be ordered for both commercial and residential locations that currently do not have working phone lines. In addition, the working telephone service can be dropped from locations that currently have both DSL and telephone service in order to convert to standalone DSL.
A word of caution! Existing telephone customers should tell the telephone company that they would like to convert their line to standalone DSL rather than stating that they would like to cancel their phone line. Canceling a phone line might be interpreted as desiring disconnection of all services, which would include termination of DSL along with the telephone.
Availability of standalone DSL is subject to the exact same limitations as traditional DSL. If you have any questions or are interested in obtaining standalone DSL, please contact Crocker Customer Care.
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Security, Reliability, and Affordability are the cornerstones of Crocker Colocation
Colocation is an excellent and cost-effective way for systems administrators to plan for disaster recovery and provide their mission critical applications and hardware with 24/7 uptime.
Crocker's Colocation facility supports the needs of a growing network in a secure, controlled environment, providing dedicated space for equipment and data storage.
Located in the heart of the Springfield Technology Park, Crocker's Colocation Facility provides both partial rack and full cabinet space for customers requiring affordable, secure, high-speed Internet access and redundant, industry-grade power, cooling, UPS and generator backup for their products or services.
Our state-of-the-art Colocation Facility has been specially designed to handle the most demanding Internet applications, including:
- E-Commerce and transactional Internet applications
- ASP Providers
- CLECS
- WAN build outs
- Large, high-traffic web sites
- Web servers
- Database servers
- Disaster recovery strategies
- Mirrored sites
Crocker Colocation Benefits:
- Avoid the costs of running and maintaining your own data center and network infrastructure
- Multiple high-speed Internet connections eliminate single points of failure
- Reduced Internet connectivity costs
- Guaranteed, redundant power
- Established local presence without building or leasing your own brick and mortar location
- Climate control and fire suppression
- 24/7 security and monitoring
- Offsite, reliable backup site for your data storage
For more information or a tour of Crocker’s Colocation facility, please contact Corporate Sales at 1-800-413-LINE.
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Crocker launches VoIP for business
The Crocker VoIP solution (Voice over Internet Protocol) matches cutting edge VoIP technology with the flexibility and reliability of a Crocker-hosted and managed phone system. This combination provides for a dynamic and robust phone product offering designed to meet the needs of businesses.
Unlike many other VoIP providers such as Vonage and Skype, Crocker does not use the Internet for call delivery. With the Crocker solution, phone calls are sent and received over the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) once they arrive at your Crocker managed phone system via your Crocker managed Internet circuit. This network design provides superior voice quality as well as enriched VoIP features not found on a traditional phone system.
Crocker's managed VoIP service is an ideal solution for building a disaster recovery plan, adding geographic diversity, enhancing your phone system, saving money, and much more.
To learn more about our VoIP Hosted PBX product, please take a minute to download our PBX Fact Sheet [pdf] or call Corporate Sales at 1-800-413-LINE.
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The Future of Gaming is Here
by Todd Whitney
The next generation of game consoles landed back in November. They've been profiled in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and hundreds of gaming magazines and websites. Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s Playstation3, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 represent the future of video gaming.
Each of these new systems is a huge improvement over its predecessor and includes a vast array of new features and technology. I’m not going to try to sell you on a particular system, but I can offer some basic advice if you're in the market for a new console.
Nintendo's Wii
The Wii throws convention to the wind with its two new innovative controllers—the wiimote and the nunchuck. The wiimote, a motion sensitive controller, looks more like a remote control than a video game controller. The nunchuk is a small plastic handle with a joystick and trigger button on it.
With a flick of your wrist or a wave of your arm, the wiimote translates your movements into on-screen actions in video games. For example, you can use the wiimote like a baseball bat while playing a baseball game (Wiisports), or like a sword while playing a game that involves swinging a sword (Red Steel). You can easily imagine almost endless possibilities for its use in this manner.
In addition to the new features, the Wii also acts as a Game Cube (GC) and can use the previous console's controllers and memory cards and play GC games.
The Wii also includes the Nintendo virtual console, which allows you to play old Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Neo–Geo, and Sega games for a nominal fee, of about $5 each. However, you need high speed Internet access to play the virtual console games.
While the control scheme is an innovative and refreshing change from that which is offered by other consoles, the Wii graphics look like little more than a stepped-up version of those offered by Nintendo's Gamecube. In addition after playing for a while you’re likely to get tired from using your arms so much (the wiimote), this might limit the enjoyment of the Wii for some. However, if top-of-the-line graphics and a strenuous arm workout aren’t your main concerns, the Wii might be for you.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is Microsoft’s latest venture into the gaming arena. It sports some of the most advance graphics technology available on the market including three dual core processors and a graphics card which makes most high end gaming machines blush. It’s a powerhouse, and it's pretty.
If you're a diehard shooter, sports, or action fan, the Xbox 360 has what you want and more. The increased processing and graphics power means more realistic games than ever before. It's important to note that the Xbox 360 comes in two flavors—the ‘core’ system ($299) and the ‘pro’ bundle ($399).
The pro bundle includes a wireless controller (the core has a wired one), a high definition AV cable (composite with the core), a wireless headset (none with the core), and a 20-gigabyte hard drive (no hard drive with the core). A hard drive is required to play original Xbox games. If you feel that you'll eventually wind up with the extra components that the 'pro' system includes, you'll save money by choosing the 'pro' system at the outset.
The Xbox 360 came out last Christmas season (2005), so there're over a year's worth of games on the shelves for it, which probably means you won’t have to look hard to find something that's right up your alley. If nothing else strikes your fancy, the Xbox 360 is compatible with most Xbox games. This website reports on the compatibility of old Xbox games with the Xbox 360.
Xbox Live (Microsoft's system for online gaming) has over 3 million members, meaning you won't have to wait long to find someone to play games with. Xbox Live is a subscription-based service and high speed Internet access is required.
If you enjoy great graphics and playing against other people, the Xbox 360 would probably suit your gaming needs, though I recommend waiting for the summer to see if they start to offer bundled deals on the system.
Sony’s Playstation 3
Sony’s Playstation 3 is designed to be the center of your 21st century living room. High definition output, a Blu-ray disk player, a built-in web browser, and a video game system round out the next generation console offering from Sony. The Playstation 3 is an entertainment juggernaut, and if you want the latest and greatest in video quality, the built-in Blu-ray player makes the PS3 an attractive option.
The Playstation 3 uses a ‘Cell’ processor, which is designed to generate graphics on a par with real life. Most will agree that the PS3's graphics can breathtaking. In addition, the Playstation 3 is compatible with most PS2 and PS1 games so be sure to check Sony’s compatibility website to make certain that your older games will work with the PS3. Besides a few early glitches, the cost of the system is the main deterrent to buying a PS3. Like the Xbox360, the PS3 comes in two varieties. The more expensive PS3 option ($699) includes a wireless card, and has a bigger hard drive. The details of Sony’s system for online play with the PS3 are still a bit hazy, but for the moment it appears to be free, though slightly less reliable than Microsoft’s Xbox Live service Personally I’d wait until next Christmas before I shelled out the big bucks for the PS3. Hopefully by then there will be a good library of games and some of the system's minor annoyances will have been worked out.
Editor’s Note: Todd is a senior at Rochester Institute of Technology student majoring in Information Technologies and Applied Networking and System Administration. In his spare time he enjoys ballroom dance and video games.
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Do you know what RSS is?—Get just the info you want, when you want, delivered from the web.
Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a format for delivering frequently updated web content. Many news-related sites and weblogs syndicate their content as an RSS Feed and deliver it to anyone who requests it. This allows you to stay informed, up to the minute if you desire, by automatically retrieving the latest content from the sites you’re interested in. It eliminates the need to take the time to visit each site individually or check email newsletters. The number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly.
What you need to get started:
To get an RSS feed you have to install an RSS reader and connect it to the RSS feeds for the sites you select. Some popular feed readers include FeedReader (Windows) and NewsGator (Windows—integrates with Outlook) and Amphetadesk (Windows, Linux, Mac). My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers. Each of these sites includes screens shots and demos. You can get an idea of how each works before you choose one to download.
Next:
Once you have your Feed Reader, you can search for sites that syndicate their content. You may find, on some of your favorite sites, a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available. Syndic8.com lists sites with available feeds and they are sorted by category.
Once you’re set up, you’ll find RSS feeds are a convenient way to stay up to date on your favorite topics, websites or latest news headlines.
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Keeping Personal Information Safe on Computers
It's worth noting that an identity thief doesn't need to get anywhere near your home or your computer to steal any important personal information you may have stored on it (financial records, tax returns, bank account data, etc.).
These tips can help you keep your computer—and the information it stores—safe.
- Do not open files or download programs sent to you by strangers. They may contain spyware with the capability of tracking the keys as you type on your keyboard. (This is one of the ways credit card numbers are stolen online.) One of the better tools for controlling SpyWare is Spybot. The software can be downloaded for free from http://www.download.com. Please remember that 3rd party software for removing SpyWare is not supported by Crocker Communications.
- Both software and hardware firewalls can help prevent unwanted access to your computer through the Internet. Crocker includes a hardware firewall setup as part of our DSL setup.
- Don’t get hooked by a phishing scam. If you receive an email asking for personal account details, delete it. Legitimate companies will not ask for your information via email. If you are concerned about an account, do not click through a link sent in the message. Contact the company yourself using a known phone number or open a new browser and type in the web address that you know to be correct.
- Stay current with all security patches provided for your operating system. Microsoft Windows Update will automatically scan your computer and tell you which critical updates you need to install.
You can also access updates in Windows by clicking Start and choosing Windows Update or Mac OS by using the Software Update preferences panel.
- Install anti-virus software such as Norton Anti-Virus or McAfee VirusScan on your computer. A purchased subscription is required to keep your virus signatures up-to-date on your computer. Anti-virus software will be ineffective unless you keep the software current.
- Only use one credit card for online purchases so it’s easier to monitor. When making a transaction online, look for the “lock” icon on the browser's status bar to be sure your information is secure during transmission. Read website privacy policies and do not do business with unfamiliar vendors. Review your statements.
- A laptop’s portability makes it an easy target for theft. Do not store financial information on a laptop unless it’s absolutely necessary. If you do, use a strong password with a combination of letters (upper and lower case), numbers and symbols. Never use the automatic log in feature.
Monitor children’s use of the computer. Know what sites they visit and with whom they chat. There is a wide range of parental controls available to help you keep your children safe on the Internet and also prevent them from inadvertently compromising your personal information.
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Notice to all Crocker Internet Customers
Posted May 28, 2008
Please be aware that there is a fraudulent email message being sent to many of our customers. The message appears to come from Crocker Communications and requests that you send your password as a reply. Do not respond to this message. For security purposes, Crocker Communications never asks you to provide your password via email.
Please note that you should never click on links in an email if you are unsure of the origin of the message. Email addresses and website links, as well as websites themselves, are easily faked or spoofed. Please open a new browser and type www.crocker.com to get Crocker’s up to date Customer Care contact information (including phone numbers) if you are suspicious and want to verify the legitimacy of the email.
If you have any questions regarding this notice, give us a call or send an email — we will be happy to help!
Most Sincerely,
Crocker Customer Care Team
Customer Care Department
Crocker Communications, Inc.
Email: support@crocker.com
Support Hours (EST): Mon-Fri 8AM–5PM
Telephone: Springfield 413-654-1000, Greenfield 413-475-1000,
Northampton 413-387-1000
http://www.crocker.com/support/support.html
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