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Aug 17-98 As of July 1, 1998, Mia.Net has begun an advertising campaign centered in Radio. We have posted some of our commercials, including our new Jingle. Aug 13-98 Boy, this just keeps getting better! Not only will we be adding FrontPage Extension Support, but also telnet access and shell accounts will be available soon as well. Aug 12-98 And now for something completely different! Mia.Net has been testing several new web server platforms ranging from WebTen, Cobalt and Sun. We have chosen the Sun Sparc and Solaris 2.6 to be the platform from which to run our new FrontPage Server at Mia.Net. By the end of August you will have a choice of having your home pages hosted on UNIX running Apache, or Macintosh running WebStar. If you wish to utilize the FrontPage Server at Mia.Net please email support@mia.net. Please note: User Web pages on the FrontPage Server will be in the form of home.mia.net/~username User Web pages on the WebStar Server will be in the form of www.mia.net/username Aug 6-98 You may have noticed routing problems and reachability problems for a few minutes on Wednesday August 5th, between 5:00PM CDT and 5:30PM CDT. Our Upscale Provider's connection to BBN Planet became unstable causing their BGP routing session with them to bounce up and down. The extra router load this caused had the side-effect of bouncing the routing sessions on their network between Milwaukee and Madison and between Milwaukee and Sheboygan. When this problem first started happening, it wasn't obvious what the cause of the instability was since the interface itself wasn't going down; only the routing session was going up and down. Once they determined the problem, they shut down the interface until their network stabilized. The interface is now running again but is effectively disabled. After 11:30PM CDT (Wednesday) they will be performing some circuit tests and working with BBN Planet to determine the cause of this problem. This work should not cause any further instability, but when the problem is fixed, they will re-enable the interface which may cause a few minutes of instability as routing re-converges. Finally, they are going to be doing an emergency replacement/upgrade of this router today or Friday as an early step in general network upgrades that were to take place within the next 2 months. They will be performing this replacement in a way that doesn't cause a complete outage but there will be a few periods of instability when the circuits are re-homed. We will send out another notice to announce the exact date and time of this work. July 30-98 In a recent Computer expo (COMDEX?), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon." In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics: 1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day. 2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car. 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on. 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine. 5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT". But then you would have to buy more seats. 6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads. 7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light. 8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt. 9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off. 10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna. 11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department. 12. Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car. 13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine. July 30-98 Mia.Net broke into Radio recently. That's right, for 1 whole month we have been advertising on WLKG in Lake Geneva(Jeremy's home, although I am rarely there.) We have also created a jingle, written and Produced by Saxe Productions up in Appleton. We got to spend Tuesday up in Appleton at the recording studio to watch the musicians, singers, and engineers do their dirty work. Starting in August listen to WLKG to hear our new jingle. July 28-98 The tyrants attack!!! That's right the phone company has been attacking Mia.Net since March of 97. To be more specific two area telephone companies have been attacking Mia.Net in several indirect ways. If you have noticed that you cannot email your friends at two local Internet Service Providers, that is due to the fact that two area telephone companies have blocked access by Mia.Net users and two local Internet Service Providers users from communicating with Mia.Net users and visa versa. They have also blocked access to their web sites and customer web sites. The two area telephone companies have for quite some time found it in there best interest to use any means necessary to stifle the growth of the competition. They are blocking access to keep their users from being able to see our services. As a monopoly these two area telephone companies attempted to keep Mia.Net from getting their initial telephone lines by refusing to sell them to us. This took place in March of 1997, at which time representatives from the two area telephone companies met with Mia.Net representatives to talk about the lines we needed, once they knew what we were doing with the lines, they told us to get lost. Next, we decided to locate our facilities in Ameritech territory so as to get the phone lines that they would not sell us. Since this time the two area telephone companies have tried other tricks. For instance, if you are in these two area telephone companies territories and ad the area code to our dial-in phone number you will be billed long distance. These two area telephone companies have made several personal attacks towards Mia.Net and personal attacks and threats to myself (Jeremy Kinsey) via their respective web sites, email, and phone calls to our business, and residences in Burlington and Lake Geneva, at all hours of the morning. The terror does not stop there. These two area telephone companies felt that it was necessary to call the Walworth County Sheriff on Mia.Net due to the fact we had sent email to subscribers at both the two Internet Service Providers (which the two area telephone companies own), who had previously joined a list at Mia.Net to be notified as soon as our service was available in their area. The small number of people notified was constituted as "SPAM" by the two Internet Service Providers and in the heart of a lack of competition, they called the Police? Weird. It must be great to be a monopoly and overcharge, bleed and badger your customers out of money, simply because they do not have a choice in their phone service. Well, it did not stop there. along with the harassing phone calls, email, etc. The two area telephone companies attempted a SYN Flood, Ping of Death, and numerous Denial of Service attacks on Mia.Net's network. On two occasions they managed to crash one of our servers. Both attacks originated from a machine located at on of the two area telephone companies (accross the street from the Walworth County Sheriffs Office...) and are documented in our logs. Beyond this, I myself have been sent harassing letters from the two area telephone companies attorneys demanding that I "cease and desist." (I always wondered what that meant.) I have spent the last week trying to figure out what it was that I was supposed to cease and desist. Finally it dawned on me. They want us to stop competing with their service so that they can go on being a monopoly, thus depriving the good people of this fine state of a CHOICE in ISP's. July 27-98 Something happened and I don't know what. Apparently at about 4:12PM something happened to the Internet. We never lost our connection to our provider, however apparently they lost their connection to the net, or someone at some disgruntle telco worker felt the need to wreak havoc on the world. Some of you online at the time may have noticed an inability to go anywhere for about 5 or 10 minutes. It would appear that a connection to the Internet was broken momentarily somewhere which made sites on the Internet unreachable. The problem appears to have been corrected, but we will keep monitoring the situation to see if it occurs again. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused, but at least I know it was not something I did. I would like to bring to your attention my letter to all users of the July 21st storm that battered Southeastern Wisconsin. The town of Elkhorn, though badly damaged in some parts, was not "demolished." The power substation located in Elkhorn was badly damaged, basically demolished, as well as some businesses in the Industrial Park. I am sorry if this created any unnecessary panic or disturbance, however to the best of my knowledge, no one was seriously hurt or killed. Again my apologies for acting like Tom Brokaw by jumping the gun and over reporting the news. On another note, I am fully aware of my spelling problem, (i.e. terenchal) I am currently undergoing treatment at DePaul and seeking counseling at ICSAAA(I Can't Spell At All Anonymous.) Thanx again for your understanding. (The comments and commentary reported in the Mia.Net News Section at www.mia.net/html/news are not necessarily the opinion of Bella Mia, Inc. or Maria's Internet Access, and are for pure enjoyment, critical reporting, and/or outage notification. JAK) July 22-98 At approximately 1:27PM Tuesday July 21st, 1998 Bella Mia, Inc., dba Maria's Internet Access lost power to its Spring Prairie location. The outage was caused by a massive storm front which included, hail, terenchal rains, thunder storms, lightning, shear winds, gail force, and hurricane force winds in excess of 104 miles per hour. The devastation left by the storm left an estimated 100,000 people without power around most of Southeastern Wisconsin. The entire town of Burlington and the surrounding cities and townships including Browns Lake, Bohners Lake, Spring Prairie, and Lyons were left without power. The towns of Waterford and Rochester were also affected. The town of Elkhorn was nearly demolished, leaving 911 service, power, and the Walworth County Sheriffs department helpless. The storm also left several semi tractor trailers overturned from I-94 to Hyway 11. The town of Elkhorn was essentially closed during the outage. The Governor came in to Elkhorn to provide State and Federal Aid and Assistance upon assessing the damage. Here at Bella Mia, Inc's facilities our UPS(battery back systems) kicked on immediately after the 1:27PM outage. Our battery power was exhausted in less than 30minutes for the most part. This was due to the fact that we had previously been on battery back up due to the previous days storms impacting in Walworth county. Unfortunately problems with our backup generator led us to seek out a new one. Within 20 minutes of our outage we located a generator and began moving our system over to it. However due to the nature of our equipment and the drain that our batteries had taken in the previous outage, we were unable to get the generator to power up. Therefore the decision was made to move the batteries to our Lake Geneva residence to restore them enough so that they would work with the temporary generator. While charging the batteries in Lake Geneva, the power was finally restored at 11:26AM Wednesday July 22nd, 1998. The last of our systems were back on line at 12:00 noon. Any incoming mail would have been picked up by our back up servers in Milwaukee. Our mail servers here will be pounding away all day retrieving the overflow of backed up mail messages. You should expect to see some latency upon retrieving message for at least a day. I am glad to say that none of our systems we damaged and no incoming mail or data was destroyed. Here at Bella Mia, Inc., we have 5 UPS units each capable of handling 4000 watts of power each under normal conditions for up to 6 hours at 50% of capacity. Between the two outages there was not sufficient time to recharge the units prior to losing power again on Tuesday afternoon. We have decided to replace our current system with either a diesel/natural gas generator similar to the ones used by the phone company to keep phone lines up in the event of disasters. We appreciate your understanding during this tragic time and natural disaster. I would like to thank the brave men and women at Wisconsin Electric for their assistance and prompt efforts in restoring power in such a timely manner, while working in dangerous and harsh conditions. Also law enforcement, rescue persons, and the Red Cross for their help in making sure the elderly, and powerless were safe and cool in this hot humid weather. We really take for granted all of the wonders modern society has: power, cable, telephones, etc., what on earth would we all do without these things? If you have any questions or comments, please direct them to questions@mia.net Regards, Mia.Net July 8-98 We are pleased to announce that this weekend July 12, Mia.Net is now officially serving the following new communities: Mia.Net West! (Walworth County)
Click here to sign up! Click here for Mia.Net West Pricing Information. July 4-98 Happy 4th of July from Mia.Net! June 25-98 When it rains it pours! It looks like every time it rains something breaks in phone company land. Our Burlington POP blinked momentarily at about 8:53 PM this evening during the brief thunderstorm that rolled through South East Wisconsin. Your favorite Systems Admin was hit by a tree while driving in the storm, and other than that, all is well. Total down time about 5 minutes. The funny thing is our Time Warner T-1 lines never even blink... never (knock on wood.) In other news 48 new modems arrived early this morning and are expected on line some time in July. June 24-98 Hello Mia.Net subscribers. In keeping with our commitment to staying on top of cutting edge technology and superior service, we are doing some software upgrades. At approximately 12:00AM (CST) Thursday June 25, we will be upgrading some equipment on our network. Total down time should not exceed 2 minutes. We are sorry for any inconvenience during the brief down time. June 18-98 Hello, at approximately 5:10:48PM Thursday June 18, Armageddon struck. A nasty storm including reported tornadoes, hurricane force winds and heavy rains struck most of South East Wisconsin. Mia.Net lost one of its main dial in trunk groups to the Burlington phone number. I am happy to say that all is well now and the lines are back up and solid. Below is a list from our "oh no!" log.
On another note, if you were calling from State Line Long Distance or South East Telephone, you would not have been able to get through to us, even if we were up. These independent phone companies phone system was completely fried during the storm and we have reports of customers getting the typical "All Circuits Busy" recording (female voice) as well as fast busies. June 13-98 I have some very important news for subscribers located in areas other than Ameritech. Specifically South East Telephone customers otherwise known as State Long Distance. It has come to our attention that at certain times of the day there are busy signals for customers in this telephone companies areas. The busy signals are in the form of either "fast busies" or a recorded female voice exclaiming "all circuits busy." If you experience these types of busy signals, call your local phone company and ask them to upgrade their service. Fast busies and recorded messages of "all circuits busy" are related to weak telephone infrastructure problems and an overselling of current services. This is a confirmed problem. Also it is very important that when connecting to Mia.Net you make sure that the dial-in phone number does not contain a 1 or the area code or both in the "phone number" location. State Long Distance (South East Telephone) WILL BILL YOUR local calls as long distance if they sense more than 7 digits being used. Even if you dial the number correctly, but accidentally enter an extra digit, their system WILL BILL YOUR local calls as long distance at rates as high as 24 cents per minute. If you note these charges on you phone bill, call your phone company immediately and contact billing. If you are unable to gain satisfaction, please call the PSC(Public Service Commission) at 1-800-225-7729 they are aware of this issue and are currently following up on it. Please be specific with the representative that you speak with and explain that you are being billed long distance for a local call. If you have any questions about problems with your local phone company please contact us via email at support@mia.net June 11-98 We will be doing some network upgrades tomorrow which will include adding a new hub to part of our network. These upgrades should not affect connectivity or Internet performance. June 5-98 I am happy to report that we have a tentative date for the Geneva Lakes Area Expansion Project. June 26, 1998 Mia.Net will begin providing service to the 248/249 exchanges of Lake Geneva. Local dial-in will now include the following cities:
Be sure to check with your local telephone company to make sure that the 248/249 exchange is a local call to your area. | ||
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