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Updated: 20 February 2004

Message Of The Day

Chebucto News Archive

Major blizzard shuts down city, province

A major blizzard with winds gusting as high as 110 km/h dropped more than 90 cm of snow Thursday (February 19, 2004), almost double the previous one-day snowfall record set sixty years ago in 1944. Cleanup from the storm is expected to last days. An overnight power failure lasting 11 hours took down Chebucto services. At this time (3 PM Friday afternoon), Chebucto services are all back online though one of the two mail filtering servers is having hard drive problems.

Currently a Provincial State of Emergency is in effect, most side streets and secondary roads are impassable and at least some main streets are single lane only. Cars are being advised to stay off the roads to allow cleanup crews and emergency service vehicles access. Even more snow is expected through the weekend into Monday.

MyDoom virus hits hard.

The MyDoom virus has become the number one most filtered virus with more than 570,428 copies being intercepted since it first appeared January 25, 2004. At its peak more than 45,000 copies a day were being filtered.

To give these figures some scale, this time last year 40,000 emails a day was the total amount of mail Chebucto would process on a fairly busy day.

The MyDoom virus is spread through email attachments and file sharing programs like Kazaa. More information on it is here: F-Secure MyDoom info. Computers infected with MyDoom have a "backdoor" installed so the infected computer may be used by unknown persons to launch future virus or Denial-Of-Service attacks without the victim's knowledge.

New 1-800 Access for Plus!

Chebucto Plus users needing dialup access while travelling across North America can now connect using a toll-free 1-800 Access number. Time on the 1-800 Access line is booked in advance in one or two hour increments, $6.00 per hour or $10 for two hours. 1-800 Access details here

The 1-800 Access service has been a popular request for some time now. For the present, 1-800 Access is good only from anywhere in North America but if demand is sufficiently high, it could conceivably be expanded in the future.

When we were ten

Chebucto Community Net is celebrating its first decade and we're looking for ideas and people interested in helping out with organizing the festivities. If you are interested in helping out, please get in touch with the Chebucto Community Net office here.

New digital phone equipment purchased

A new multiple digital modem unit has been purchased by Chebucto. This 92 modem unit, a twin to our present 56 K service equipment, will allow Chebucto to double the capacity of the Chebucto Plus 56 K service as the need arises. The new equipment is currently being tested by the Chebucto Technical Committee.

Board member resigns

Gerard MacNeil has resigned as a Director of the Board of the Chebucto Community Net Society. First elected to the Board two years ago, Gerard MacNeil was one of the first members of the Chebucto Community Net and helped build the original Chebucto Community Net infrastructure. As Chair of the Internal Committee, he helped with the ongoing process of re-organization of group and organizational accounts. His position as Director will remain unfilled until the next Annual General Meeting, scheduled for April. In the meanwhile, Board member Reg Hody is the current Chair of the Internal Committee

Cool Chebucto hats available!

We have available these excellent quality Chebucto Community Net hats. Click on photo to see larger version. These fashionable stone coloured washed cotton Chino twill hats are low fitting with adjustable strap and antique silver ring buckle for a perfect fit and are embroidered with the Chebucto Community Net logo and web address. Machine washable and drip dry with a pre curved peak, this hat will provide years of comfortable wear as well as showing your support for Halifax's own one-of-a-kind independent Community Net.

You can get your very own Chebucto Community Net hat from the Chebucto office for $20 or we can mail it out to you for an additional $10.

Chebucto Newspaper Column Give-aways!

Chebucto's Mousepad newspaper column, written by Chebucto Board member Mark Alberstat with occasional help from some fellow Chebucto volunteers, is now archived here at Chebucto. The column is published every second week in the Sunday Chronicle Herald. The Mousepad focuses on computers and internet technologies and how they can be used by people for an almost infinite variety of purposes. People can write in questions to the column and if they are used they will get a cool new Chebucto Community Net mousepad. Email questions to the Mousepad at mousepad@chebucto.ns.ca

Chebucto mousepads may be purchased from the Chebucto Office for $5 each or mailed out for $15 each. Contact office@chebucto.ns.ca to order.

**Chebucto Users still tops in *.NS.CA SETI processing**

SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, has been processing their radio telescope data with home users' computers for years now. Using an innovative screensaver which runs whenever the user computer is not in use, SETI has had more than 1,820,000 years of high quality computer processor time donated to it.

Of all the computer domains ending in the letters NS.CA, denoting Nova Scotia, chebucto.ns.ca now ranks number one, producing more than double the results of both the government of Nova Scotia and the vast resources of EdNet, the schools network combined. Current stats here. Chebucto users have sent in more than 27,000 results, representing more than 52 years of CPU time that would otherwise have been wasted.

SETI is about to complete a new observation phase, targetting the top 200 candidate signals for direct observation using the full resources of the world's largest radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

Outlook user email advisory

After the continuing wave of viruses specifically targetting users of Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express email programs, and the constant stream of user complaints about randomly altered program settings and difficulty using the program, the Chebucto Community Net Office and the Chebucto Technical Committee recommend our users do not use either Outlook or Outlook Express as their email program.

Windows Users can find a selection of email programs available for download here and Macintosh users can find a selection of email programs here. Mozilla Thunderbird, available free for Windows, Macintosh and Linux from Mozilla.Org is a popular alternative.

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