Introduction
It's time for another edition of the Granite Newsletter. If you would like this
newsletter e-mailed to you every month, send mail to
webmistress@granite.mb.ca with
newsletter as the subject line and we'll put you on the list. You don't have to
be a Granite subscriber to get this newsletter. There will be lots of local
information available here, as well as contributors from our local internet junkies,
so subscribe today, or just check it out on the 'net at
http://www.granite.mb.ca/newsletter.
Christmas on the Net
I have no idea how it got here so quickly, but it is December and that means
Christmas is right around the corner. This is a big holiday for netizens. Search
and you will find lot's of Christmas events happening. Here at the Granite offices
we have gotten into the spirit by launching
The 12 Sites of Christmas Contest. With the cooperation of some of the most
surprising webmasters around the world, the contest offers players the chance to
win some prizes, have some fun and perhaps even find some great sites to visit.
Granite also managed to contact the big man himself, and has put up a location for
all the children of the world to
e-mail Santa
this year. Santa has promised to respond to each and every email he receives. We
don't quite know how he does that, what with all the other things he's busy with
this time of year, but he mentioned something about the magic of Christmas.
If the Postal Strike has prevented your annual Christmas Card mailing, don't despair. Send your friends and family an e-card instead, complete with personalized message and even music if you like!
There's a lot more on the net this Christmas just waiting for your exploration. Type Christmas into any search engine and see what you find.
The Postal Strike
The Canadian Snail Mail system has ground to a halt this past month. This is
playing havoc on some types of businesses and is hurting the charities in a big
way. Everyone hopes this dispute can be settled quickly and that both sides will
be able to live with the agreement so we don't have to go through this again. At
Granite, however, the postal strike has been only a minor annoyance and is actually
going to be good for business in the long run. Many of our clients
are finding e-mail an excellent alternative to snail mail. Our rural post offices
are open for business, although no mail is transferring between the offices. Many
rural businesses have always relied on courier services for parcel delivery, and the
local couriers are doing a really great job during this strike. I don't know if
it's all the overtime this close to Christmas or what,
but they have been very friendly and efficient.
Granite has been planning to move to an e-mail billing system for a while now, and the strike has pushed us into action. Read about the new e-mail billing system later on in this newsletter.
Granite has arranged post office locations in Beausejour and Lac du Bonnet Post Offices for you to use to pay your bill during the strike. Mail your payments at any of the following locations, or make this an opportunity to come visit us at our office in the Kelsey House, 32 Burrows Road in Pinawa.
Lac du Bonnet
Address your payment to:
Granite Internet Services Inc.
General Delivery
Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba
Beausejour
Address your payment to:
Granite Internet Services Inc.
General Delivery
Beausejour, Manitoba
We hope these locations are convenient for most of you. We also realize there will be some of you who will be required to do some travelling and we apologize for that. With any luck the dispute will be over soon.
Winter Arrives - Sort Of
Thank-you El Nino! Wow, what a winter we've had so far! Can you believe this weather?
Since there's not really enough snow for good Snowmobiling yet, why not check out
some of these great sledding links instead. These
links were supplied by local Snopal Terry Howard:
If cross-country skiing is more your thing, why not come out to Pinawa and enjoy some of our wonderful ski trails. Check out this on-line map of the trails.
E-Mail Billing
It's been coming for awhile now, but the postal strike has pushed Granite into the
world of e-mail billing. Most ISP's in Canada use one form of e-mail billing or
another. It just doesn't make sense to pay Canada Post when we have the technology
to avoid those costs right at our finger tips.
This month, you will receive two e-mail messages from Granite. One of those messages will be your invoice while the other will be your statement of usage for the past month. You will not be receiving any other bill from us and you are responsible for payment of that bill. If you require a receipt, all you need to do is print out the invoice you have been sent.
You will find that the e-mail invoice will provide you a bit more information than you used to get. For instance, anyone on a time payment plan will be sent notification about which month of that plan they are currently on. This way, you will know when to expect your next bill. Payment of previous bills will be noted on this invoice so you will know when and if we received your last payment.
In the past, we have overlooked small amounts (under one hour) of overuse as well as small amounts (under 1MB) of overuse of server storage use. That fudge factor has been included in the billing program and will continue. We will not be automatically changing your account type based on overuse any more, though. If you require a change in account type, you will have to contact us before the first of the month.
If you have any questions or concerns about your invoice this month, or any month, please don't hesitate to contact us. You can use the reply function from your e-mail invoice to conveniently question your invoice. This will provide us both with a copy of the invoice in question. Everyone should receive an e-mail bill, even if you don't have anything owing. If you don't receive a bill by December 2, please contact us immediately.
Network Manager’s Report
Wow, what a month; an upgrade, a move, and high usage are the highlights.
Problems
No significant problems where reported from Mbnet. Granite had a minor problem when one of its routers lost its routing and most network traffic had no default route.
Upgrades
On Wednesday November 19, 1997 Granite started upgrading its main feed to the Internet. With some minor MTS problems, the line was up and functioning on Friday November 21, 1997. The new equipment and line were tested over the weekend. On Monday November 24, 1997 at 10:00AM the Lac du Bonnet modem pool was moved to its new location. The new phone lines where wired in and operational by 1:00PM. The Pinawa modem pool was discontinued Tuesday afternoon, at which point the modems were moved to Lac du Bonnet. Granite’s WWW server was moved to the new Internet feed on Tuesday November 25, 1997 at midnight. By 3:00AM the upgrade and move were complete.
The Whitemouth modem pool will see some performance increase during the evenings but will not, unfortunately, see much performance increase during the day because of the school usage.
New Features
Granite now offers 67k dialup access for high bandwidth users that can dial Lac du Bonnet toll free (Beausejour, Pinawa, Pine Falls, Whitemouth). This service is not available from the Whitemouth modem pool at this time. Graphs of modem usage and network usage are now available to the public.
December Upgrades/Changes
No planned upgrades or changes to Lac du Bonnet.
Granite is looking into ways of relieving the congestion on the Pinawa link (link is shared by Agassiz School Division, Eastman Freenet, Granite (Whitemouth), and the School District of Whiteshell). This would increase the performance for all users of Pinawa link.
Member Forum
Members - we need some interesting articles for this newsletter, and we know you're
the one's who can write them. Write a short article for the next newsletter for us,
send it to webmistress@granite.mb.ca wit
h Newsletter Article as the subject matter and just maybe we'll put it in this
section of our newsletter. The call right now is to all you Mac experts. What's
on the net for Macs? Got any good tips for getting your Mac connected? We're looking
forward to hearing from you all.
Check out our previous newsletters: