The Granite Newsletter

published October 1, 1997

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.

Internet Training

Granite will be conducting an internet training session for beginners on October 7, 1997 at 7 PM in the Whitemouth School computer lab. The course will be 3 hours of hands on training intended to get you comfortable with surfing the net, conducting searches, sending and receiving e-mail and downloading all that great stuff. We only have a couple of spaces available, so e-mail granite@granite.mb.ca if you're interested.

A Halloween Contest!

Okay folks - here you go. Win a beautiful Granite T-shirt all for your self! All you need to do is go to town designing the best Halloween site on our server. We're looking for scary, funny, practical - whatever you can dream up. I've made a rather pathetic start myself - but I can't win (I already having a Granite T-shirt). Let's not leave this one to the already accomplished web weavers. This is a good opportunity to check out our HTML help page and get started. We'll get some votes going on October 31 and announce the winner on November 1.

Autumn Arrives

Every year it happens, summer says good-bye in our region with a blaze of colour. This is undeniably my personal favorite season. The weather usually cooperates and this year has been no exception. I'd love to hear from some of the farmers in our region about the state of crops this year.

This fall the weather has been exceptionally nice. El Nino seems to be working it's magic for us. Can we hope for a mild winter? I kept hearing that the Farmer's Almanac is calling for a mild winter, but that's not entirely true. Turns out we should have two months warmer than the average and two months colder. Hmmmm... seems we Manitobans have that cup half full attitude, but if you do the math it looks like an ordinary winter to me. You don't have to buy the book, of course, because you have access to the internet!

A Road Trip

On September 27, our family decided to head off on a road trip to enjoy the beautiful fall weather. With no direction in mind we headed off towards the Whiteshell Park. Living in Pinawa, we don't find the need to head over to the crowds across the lake too often, but on this particular day the campers and cottagers had decided the season was over and left the park to we local people for the most part. The scenery in the park was breath-taking. We got to see some of the resorts I've been reading about (or writing about) on the net. Unfortunately many of you owners were off enjoying the day yourselves now that the crowds have dissipated. We passed by White Lake Resort and Keystone Resort. We headed up to Falcon Lake Resort where we decided to hike on up to Falcon Beach Riding Stables. Unfortunately we walked in the absolute wrong direction and missed it. We checked out the Falcon Beach Resort and then we checked in - resolving to get to the riding stables in the morning. After a wonderful meal in the restaurant there, and a great evening in the pool (has everyone seen the art in there?), we awoke to too much rain for a hike. I guess we'll have to head back that way to check out those riding stables. I also enjoyed all the La Vérendrye Trail signage in that area. Some one is doing a great marketing job out there.

Some Fall Recipes

Beet Borscht - The only neccessary ingredient in this one is beets and they must be shredded - not chopped. In a big pot of water add one pork chop, tons of shredded beets and any of potatoes, beans, peas and carrots. Simmer this for a few hours. Add enough vinegar to make your eyes water. Just before serving add some whipping cream. Serve this with rye bread for dipping.

Beet Leaf Holubsti - This is for those of you who have managed to fend off the deer and still have the beet tops left (that wouldn't be me, but I'm electrifying next year). Prepare a mixture of cooked rice, fried bacon (soft), fried onion, and lots of fresh dill and pepper. Roll the mixture up in raw washed beet leaves. Place the holubsti in layers in a baking dish, pouring V8 juice over each layer. Bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees. If they appear to be drying out during this time, pour more V8 juice during the baking. These can be served as is or with a dollop of sour cream on them.

I'm not the only one posting recipes on the internet, of course. To use up the innards of that jack - o - lantern try Dan Shantz's Recipes ,try some home brewing at Travis' Home Brewing Site and then pop up some Fall Popcorn to go with it. Enjoy a Wild Harvest for something a little different. For more recipes on the internet, type recipes into one of the search engines, and then surf and enjoy!

Network Manager’s Report

The month of September had its ups and down throughout the Manitoba Internet Community. The biggest problem came about September 11-14, 1997 when some one attacked one of MBnet’s clients (Granite obtains its Internet feed from MBnet, also). The end result of the attack was it disrupted routing for all of MBnet’s clients. This problem cascaded to other router(s) owned by Bell. The whole incident lasted about 3 days. The Winnipeg Police Commercial Crimes Unit and FBI were also involved in tracking down the culprit.

Granite also had some minor disruptions when one its routers lost its routing table and clients could only find the Granite servers. On September 30, 1997 www.granite.mb.ca crashed at 6:38 am and was restored at 8:30 am.

MBnet also had some minor problems with a router and their news server.

With the schools actively using their networks, the demand on Granite’s bandwidth has increased during the 9:00 am to 4:00 pm period.

The Lac du Bonnet and Pinawa modem pools have seen a slight decrease in use, where as Whitemouth has seen a larger decrease in use.

If you are dialing Pinawa and you receive a busy signal, you can try dialing the Lac du Bonnet or Whitemouth modem pools. Contact Granite for alternate phone numbers.

October Upgrades/Maintenance

Granite is looking at upgrading its bandwidth to MBnet. This should not cause any disruption in network services.

The Lac du Bonnet terminal server will be changed to match the login procedure in Pinawa and Whitemouth. No change is required to client setup. If anyone uses SLIP or CSLIP through the LdB terminal server, please email granite@granite.mb.ca.

Granite Business News

An article in the Winnipeg Free Press last month compared the success of different Internet Service Providers. The result of that survey was that the most successful ISP's were the smaller regional companies. These smaller companies were reaming in healthy profits, run by 3 or 4 key people and offering better service than the larger national companies. This is good news to Granite and it should be good news to Granite subscribers as well.

Granite is aware that there are people out there waiting for an opportunity to dial into the Granite Network through Beausejour. We're investigating all the opportunities available to us to set up a POP (Point of Presence or dial-up location) in that community. Currently, of course, Beausejour residents can dial into our Lac du Bonnet location toll-free. It's Anola, Oakbank, Selkirk and other surrounding towns that need to see Beausejour on-line. The problem there isn't the inability to set up, but rather so many different options that we want to make the right choice. Stay tuned for updated information on this.

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 with 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:

September