Widomaker
Internet-Wide Protests Against the Blacklist Legislation ( #SOPA #PIPA )
When you browse The Web on Wednesday, January, 18th, you will notice that many popular sites will be displaying messages protesting the dangerous censorship legislation currently pending in Congress (#SOPA #PIPA) instead of their regular content. Sites such as Google, Wikipedia, and many others. January 18th, 2012, may be the date of the largest online protest to occur so far in Internet history. Please take the time to learn more about this important issue that effects all Internet users. See the links below for more information and actions you can take…
http://blacklist.eff.org/
http://americancensorship.org/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/fight-blacklist-toolkit-anti-sopa-activists
Help Stop The Internet Censorship Bill
Congress is about to pass Internet censorship, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on the internet censorship bill on Tuesday, January 24th 2012, and unless we can find 41 senators to block the vote, it is going to pass…
Can you meet with your senators during the January recess and ask them to vote it down? Visit http://americancensorship.org/ before January 24th to help.
Here is a helpful guide to In-Person Meetings with Your Congressional Representatives provided by the EFF.
[Fixed] Downtown Williamsburg DSL outage 12/29/11
Some DSL customers in the downtown Williamsburg, VA, area began to experience an outage starting around 4:12 PM today (Dec. 29, 2011). We have reported this outage to the phone company and are working with them to resolve the problem as soon as possible. At this time they have not provided an ETR (Estimated Time of Repair/Resolution). We will keep this page and our telephone system message updated with details and updates as we receive them. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Update 7:00 PM:
Customers reported being able to connect again around 6:00 PM. The outage appears to be resolved.
Say “NO” to Internet Censorship
The US Congress is considering America’s first system for censoring the Internet. Despite public outcry, the Internet Censorship bill could pass at any time. If it does, the Internet and free speech will never be the same.
SAY “NO” TO INTERNET CENSORSHIP
Please take a few minutes to learn more and contact your elected officials to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Use the links below…
http://americancensorship.org/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/protect-ip-act-very-real-very-bad-call-now-block-it
https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173
Learn more about these and similar issues by visiting the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
This video helps to explain the issues with these bills…
Support / Office Closed Thursday November 24th 2011
In observation of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, our offices and support lines will be closed. Phone support will be available on Friday, November 25th, at our normal 8am to 8pm EST (however the office will be closed Friday as well), then Saturday 10am to 4pm as normal. All systems will remain monitored and any status updates can be found here, as well as by calling our support lines and listening to the automated message system greeting.
Larger mailbox sizes for Hosting customers!
We are happy to announce that effective immediately, all customers subscribed to the Bronze hosting package will now have 100MB mailbox sizes. Any customers that subscribe to Silver or Gold hosting packages will now have 1000MB mailbox sizes. All hosting customers have been given this free upgrade. For this upgrade to take effect for current hosting customers, customers must call our support line at 757-253-7621 to take advantage of this upgrade.
[Fixed] DSL Outage in Williamsburg 8/3/11
There is a known outage in the Williamsburg area near Centerville and Longhill Road. This outage is caused by a fiber cut at that location. The fiber repair should be restored before noon on Thurs. We will keep this post and support lines updated.
8/4/11 2:30pm: Repair complete
Trouble getting Widomaker email?
If your email program keeps prompting you for your username and password, or you get a failure notice. Be sure that your POP3 Username is just the first part of your email address.
EXAMPLE:
Email: johndoe@widomaker.com or johndoe@tni.net
Account Name/Username: johndoe (Be sure to drop the @widomaker.com/@tni.net)
How To Check:
-Outlook Express: Tools/Accounts/Mail Tab/Properties/Servers Tab (Check Account Name)
-Outlook: Tools/E-Mail Accounts/View or Change existing email account/Next/Change (Check User Name)
-Eudora: Tools/Options/Getting Started (Check Login Name)
-Thunderbird: Tools/Account Settings/Server Settings (Check User Name)
If you still need help, please feel free to contact us at 757-253-7621.
Widomaker NNTP Service to be Discontinued
The Widomaker Newsgroups/Usenet service, powered by Giganews will be discontinued as of January 31st, 2011. Existing customers will continue to be able to access the service until February 28th, 2011.
This decision is in alignment with other Internet Service Providers that have recently terminated their Newsgroups service due to the declining popularity of Newsgroups as customers chose other methods, such as RSS feeds and web browsing to access information.
If you would like to continue using Giganews service, visit http://www.giganews.com/signup/ for a 14-day free trial.
[FIXED] DSL Outage (WMBG/NN/Norfolk)
Please note, some DSL customers in the Wmbg/NN/Norfolk areas may be having trouble getting connected to the internet. The common error message is 738 “The server did not assign an address”. We are aware of the problem and working with the Network Engineers to resolve this as quick as possible, In most cases, the connection will get establish after a few attempts So please keep trying until this problem is resolved.
11/1/10 11:25a: No ETR as of yet. Have been told that Network Engineers are working the trouble.
11/1/10 2:08p: Possible Hardware failure in phone company network. As soon as we get an update with will let you know.
11/1/10 6:30p: No new information. Phone company ticket is still being worked in the Norfolk area.
11/2/10 7:05a: Phone company worked through the night and problem is still not resolved. At this time there is still no ETR.
11/2/10 2:30p: Problem has now been escalated to the Verizon IPNOC who run the routers and is currently working with them on the issue.
11/2/10 7:00p: Verizon has located the failing hardware that has been causing DSL customers from logging on to the internet. We have been told that they will attempt to migrate all customers to backup equipment while the failing hardware is fixed. Based on the size of this outage, this migration will take some time. Verizon has not provided an ETR of completion. Widomaker does have technicians available to assist with this migration. As this problem is out of Widomaker’s control, we are doing everything we can to get this problem resolved as quickly as possible.
11/3/10 1:00p: Service is restored. If you are still having problems, be sure to turn your DSL modem and/or Router of for 10sec and then turn them back on. Also rebooting your computer will help.
