Widomaker
56K Dialup Account Changes
Sometime this week (week of Tuesday, Dec. 18th, 2012) we will be making some changes to our 56K dialup services. This should not affect most of our 56K dialup users. However, in some cases, if the user hasn’t connected via dialup recently, they might not be able to log in after the changes take place. In that case, affected users should call our office to have any dialup login issues quickly resolved. These changes do not affect any of our other services such as DSL.
Hurricane Sandy 2012
As Hurricane Sandy approaches, please make sure you have prepared. Visit your local city or county web site for preparedness information. Follow them on Twitter or Facebook. Visit the Ready Virginia site. Make a list of important phone numbers.
Severe weather like Hurricane Sandy can cause power outages, flooding, and other damage which can cause interruptions to your Internet connection. Before that happens, make sure you have alternate methods of getting up to date information and communicating with friends and family. Make sure you have a battery powered radio with fresh batteries. Make sure you have your cell phones charged and have your home and car charger for them.
If you have a land-line telephone at your location, make sure you have a corded (hard-wired) telephone that you can connect. Cordless telephones do not usually work during power outages.
Service and status information from Widomaker can be found on our website (http://home.widomaker.com/), our blog site (http://weblog.widomaker.com/), our Facebook page, our Twitter page, and by calling our office (757-253-7621).
Dominion VA Power info can be found on their Storm Center web page. They are also on Twitter and Facebook.
Once the storm has passed, and if you have power, please report any service problems by contacting our office by telephone or e-mail.
Internet Explorer 0-Day Vulnerability
There is a zero-day vulnerability that has been discovered and in the wild exploiting Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (7, 8, and 9). Due to this, it would be a good idea to switch web browsers for a few weeks until security updates can be released for Internet Explorer. Also, make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date.
The following are several other web broswers you can install and use:
- Mozilla Seamonkey – Seamonkey is an all-in-one internet application suite containing an Internet browser, email & newsgroup client with an included web feed reader, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools.
- Mozilla Firefox
- Opera
[Fixed] Intermittent DSL issue on 8/17/2012
As of the morning of, Friday, August, 17th 2012, there is a known issue effecting aDSL customers in the area. Effected customers may experience intermittent connectivity.
We have reported the problem to the telephone company and Network technicians are working on the problem now. We hope it will be resolved quickly.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Updates will be provided via our automated telephone system by calling 757-253-7621 (option 2), on our weblog, or on our members website located at http://home.widomaker.com/
Update 10:46am: The phone company has reported that, after replacing some equipment, the problem has been resolved around 9:00am.
Walk-in Computer Assistance at the Williamsburg Library
The Williamsburg Regional Library offers walk-in computer assistance. Visit this link for their schedule.
July 4th 2012 – Office Closed
In observation of the July 4th Independence Day holiday, we will be closed on Wednesday, July 4th, 2012.
Normal hours will resume on Thursday, July 5th.
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.
[Restored] Call-Center (Power Outage)
As of 3:30pm our Newport News call-center is without power. Currently we are on backup power but not sure how long that will last.
4:30pm – Power Restored by Dominion – All Systems Normal
[Fixed] Web Hosting Outage
2/9/2012 | 2:45PM
There is a known issue that is causing Web Hosting customers to not be able to connect to their hosted web sites or hosted e-mail accounts. Network engineers are aware of, and working on the problem now. We apologize for the inconvenience. Updates will be posted here and/or available on our automated telephone system (757-253-7621).
2/10/2012 | 6:30PM
Web Hosting has been restored and services are up and running. We will continue to be testing things for the next couple of days. If any web hosting customer notices any issues they should contact our office to report them (757-253-7621). Additional details or instructions for web hosting customers may be posted here in the next few days.
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.
