Widomaker
Delayed or Rejected Mail to widomaker.com Addresses on Oct 17 2017
Some customers may be experiencing incoming e-mail delays on 10/17/2017. Widomaker purchases spam filtering services, for widomaker.com (and tni.net) e-mail addresses, from a 3rd party spam filtering provider. All e-mail destined for a widomaker.com (or tni.net) address must pass through the spam filtering servers before it reaches Widomaker’s servers.
On 10/17/2017, this spam filtering provider informed us of an issue, with their spam filtering servers, that is causing incoming mail to be delayed, if it was sent to users with a widomaker.com (or tni.net) e-mail address. They are working to resolve the issue.
Update 3:40PM: It appears that the spam filtering provider took some steps, in an effort to resolve the issue, that, while well-intentioned, caused some pending messages to be rejected, and returned to the sender. In that case, the sender will need to resend any messages that were returned to them. The majority of the delayed messages, however, should be delivered within several hours. The underlying issues appear to have been resolved. Normal e-mail delivery, to and from the spam filtering servers, appears to have resumed.
[Updated 11/16/17] Router and IoT Vulnerabilities (Dnsmasq)
On, October 2, 2017, vulnerabilities (US-CERT VU#973527) were made public, by Google’s security team, in Dnsmasq, a widely used software package included in many Internet-connected devices, such as routers, IoT devices, and Android devices. Exploitation of some of these vulnerabilities may allow a remote attacker to take control of an affected system.
New Hours Beginning 10-9-2017
Beginning on, Monday, October 9th, 2017, Widomaker’s telephone sales and support hours will change as follows:
- 10:00am – 6:00pm, Monday – Friday*
- Closed Saturday (On Saturdays, certain messages, left before noon, if they contain sufficient details, may be processed before the next business day, based on availability.)
- Closed Sunday
* During support hours, if a representative is not immediately available, you may be prompted to leave a message, so a representative, once available, may return your call. If you are prompted to leave a message, please do so.
* If you leave a message, be sure to leave details. Leaving a message that asks our support representative to “just call you back” makes it difficult for us to prioritize the call. If you leave enough detail in your message, we can often quickly send you an email to answer your question, which gets you a response much more quickly than waiting for a call back.
Cox Communications Internet Outage 7/18/2017
Widomaker’s services are all up and running, at the present time. However, some folks who use Cox Communications for their Internet connection, in Hampton Roads, may be experiencing an Internet outage affecting their ability to open websites or check e-mail.
Slow Internet? Watch Out for High Bandwidth Consuming Apps!
Has your Internet speed suddenly become unusually slow? Have you asked your Internet provider to test your connection, but found no connection issues? One of the apps, on one of your devices (computers, smartphones, tablets, etc.), may be consuming all of your available Internet upload or download bandwidth.
Advice for DSL Users with Windows 10 and Suddenly Slow Internet
(Updates added to the bottom of article)
DSL users may find that their Internet connection seems much slower once they have upgraded a computer to Windows 10, or purchased a new computer with Windows 10. This may be due to Windows 10 downloading updates or sharing updates using what Microsoft calls Windows Update Delivery Optimization.
Windows Vista Support Ends Today 4/11/2017
Microsoft ends support for Windows Vista, today, April 11, 2017. Please review the announcement from Microsoft, for more information…
Dial-up Issues 3/16/2017
There is, as of 3/16/2017, a known issue affecting some Dial-up Internet access users. This issue only affects Dial-up users. All other services, including Broadband DSL, are unaffected. Our dial-up carrier partner has provided the following update:
Plesk Web Server Partial Outage 3/15/2017
Some web hosting customers may have noticed their websites were unavailable the morning of, Wednesday, March 15th, 2017. Only database driven websites, such as those running WordPress, were affected. Standard HTML websites were unaffected.
Multiple Netgear Routers are Vulnerable (VU#582384)
According to US-CERT (part of the Department of Homeland Security), Netgear R6200, R6250, R6400, R6700, R6900, R7000, R7100LG, R7300, R7900, R8000, D6220, and D6400 routers, and possibly other models, are vulnerable to arbitrary command injection. If you use one of the vulnerable Netgear routers, we recommend that you apply an update provided by Netgear, or discontinue use and replace the vulnerable device.
