A. The Neighborhood Network is a small Information Technology company based in Quincy, IL. It is made up of a small group of Trusted Certified Information Technology Consultants. The Neighborhood Network is also known as a debt free company. It's partnerships and associations are based on actual years experience per specialist, not combined. Partnerships are developed and maintained by earning and sustaining real person-to-person trust and mutual respect. NeighborhoodNET has also left cronyism, the chamber of commerce, nepotism and the "last names" for the other technology businesses in your area to play on and exploit. Q. What types of services does NeighborhoodNET provide? A. We offer many types of proven services including the following.
What We Don't Offer - Excuses, poor workmanship, tardiness, rude comments, poor work ethics, lies, preying on ignorance, price gouging, pretentious staffing, deceptive billing practices, lame computer networks, spyware, computer worms, key loggers and virii, train wreck computers, spam, customer spying, inaccurate poorly presented and "politically correct" information. Sorry, no fairytales...we tell it like it is... What We Do Offer - Meritorious information, genuine client loyalty, stability, up front pricing and up front personalities, actual trusted computer networks, high performance, the benefit of any doubt to our clients, mutual respect, partnerships for life, the truth, non-sensationalized statements, courage to act in any situation regardless of the outcome, acting in our clients best interest and providing true privacy regardless of any legal issues. Note - In most cases when you meet a professional, you're actually meeting their "representative". With The Neighborhood Network, what you initially see, is what you will always get! Our primary objective is to educate consumers (both business and personal) about the Internet and other network options that they may not be taking advantage of. We also make our customers as independent from their ISP and Computer Company as possible. There are many services that companies offer at an additional cost to their customers that we feel should be free and we help our consumers get just that! The highest level of computer and network provider independence. Also, network security and trust is a major focus here at The Neighborhood Network. We believe that everyone has a right to privacy and we work to ensure that our customers have both private and secured connections. You wouldn't want your mailman reading your mail would you? So why should your ISP or web host to have access to your e-mail? We believe they shouldn't and that's why we work hard to educate our customers on how to make sure that their e-mail and other online activity remains private and secure. We're also in the market to keep computer companies and Internet service providers honest with their clients. We are always asked to sit between technology companies and their customers in order to keep the truth in play. This keeps businesses from overspending and falling prey to their own ignorance. We've saved our customers millions of dollars in consulting fees and infrastructures that they were not going to be able to take full advantage of. Q. Is NeighborhoodNET (The Neighborhood Network) an ISP? A. No. The Neighborhood Network is not an ISP. We do offer consumers Internet connectivity options through referrals to ISP's that we feel have the same focus on customer service and online freedom and privacy that we have. We strive to bring options to consumers that are outside of the local market. This gives customers more options and more freedom to choose. Just because your local ISP has told you that you cannot get something, does not necessarily mean that someone else can't bring it to you. We have done the legwork and research so you don't have to. Q. You're not like most companies in your line of work. Why? A. Because most companies feel that they need to belong to a specific class of business and stay in that class with other businesses of the like. Trying new things (diversifying) is rarely a though for most businesses with that type of mind set. Also, individual businesses that have the exact same qualities and services as the next one are known to either gouge or low ball their rate schedules to throw off their competitors and confuse potential customers. Mostly this is due to what the name of their company is or what their last names are, or how much "combined" experience the may claim to have. Another reason could be because of the marketing hype that they've created and the size of the building that they occupy. We strive to stay consistent with our corporate and personal clients and work smart and hard to keep mutual respect in play. So we guess that being consistent and adventurous could be some of the things that makes us unlike most companies in our line of work. We're a little different than the others in a lot of different ways. Q. Your site seems kind of personal. What's up with that? A. Well, we are people and we work on personal and business levels. There are other "personal" sites that are business based. The widely used GRC.com website is another good example of a "personal" site on the internet. Q. What is your customer retention percentage rate? A. 98%. We'd also like to add to this answer that unlike all other companies out there we genuinely admire our clients. The great and lasting relations we build with our clients are a direct result of personalities that are "of the like" working together. Also, we're very selective as to who we choose to help as trust and mutual respect are also not a given. Out of all the request for services that we receive, we actually end up turning down 87% of them as a result of less than perfect personalities claiming to need our help. This model of positive collaboration and auditing of potential clients is 110% more effective than the old ways of just letting anyone into our group. They spend their heard earned money with us because they know that they will get ACTUAL performance and EXACTLY what they want. The other 2% just aren't ready for us, or let alone themselves. We also totally avoid the temperamental customer Q. It seems like you don't care too much for ISP's or Computer Companies. Why? A. They're not all bad. It's mostly the refugees from a parent company that are the ones that are trying to put those who let them go out of business by trying to make a quick buck. But for the most part, as consultants we've witnessed those types of companies prey on ignorance when providing "services" to others. What we do is advise people then show them the industry standards in black and white through the use of books or accredited web sites on the subjects of information technology. We also provide a list of materials that you can look over when we initially meet with you and the materials in the list that we provide can be purchased anywhere without any kickback to us. We're also asked to sit between computer companies and businesses in order to debunk and audit the sellers work ethics on behalf of the potential buyers. This helps in verifying the licensing of software, the avoidance of pre installed spyware and key loggers, and many other questionable acts that certain companies perform in order to keep themselves in business. Computer companies and Internet Providers are nothing more to us than tools that we use in our day to day work activities. Q. What is your geographical reach? A. Unlimited! We can operate anywhere at anytime. Either In person, by e-mail, by phone, or by remote access. Q. I can see your network from home or my dial up account. But when I'm at work I can't. Why? A. The company that you work for is blocked at our firewall. They either called us and gave us a hard time about something or tried to test (attack) our network without authorization. Sorry, but tolerating a bully is not our game. It cost $300.00 to be removed from the firewall and requires a safe distance contract to be signed by the owner of the offensive IP bloc. Q. Is your company part of a franchise? A. No. We manage to stand on our own feet. Some "big" franchised IT businesses are nothing more than price gouging little people in high places. A franchise name provides only the illusion of strength with high overhead. Q. How secure are your systems? A. As you may or may not know, security is defined as the sum of all measures taken to prevent a loss. What we do as security conscious workers, is develop systems that present themselves and act as extremely hard targets, We also find ways to aggravate and insult the would be system cracker. We also expose all malicious and unauthorized connectivity attempts to the general public, thus violating the privacy of the would be cracker. Regardless of what your ISP or freestanding consultant says, no single system's security infrastructure is completely fool proof. Q. Do you have a referral program? A. Yes. We have a referral program for those who wish to generate extra revenue. In order to be in the referral program you must be a client of ours. It's easy to become a client. all you have to do is call and set up an appointment. Unfortunately, due to political and social engineering issues, computer companies and ISP's will not be eligible for this program. Q. Do you have any affiliations with any other local IT businesses? A. Fortunately, no. Mainly it's for security reasons and to maintain an environment free of government and outside business politics and personal political opinions. Social engineering is also big problem with computer and telecommunications companies that are affiliated. Especially if they share the same geographical footprint. Simply put, if you have a business relationship with an ISP and a computer company that are affiliated with each other, and your relationship goes south with either of them, one may choose to share privileged information about you to the other. That's if they haven't done so already. Also, a disgruntled employee or competitor within either institutions may see an opportunity to do damage in retaliation against their bully boss or a workplace that has poor and unfair working conditions (i.e. nepotism, preferential and prominent last names, employers children as staff in the workplace, etc.). A situation that could leave you open to many bad things. Unfortunately, if it happens to you, it's your fault! It's safe to say that we are immune to these situations. We do outsource to IT businesses from time to time that are friends of The Neighborhood Network. When this occurs, we are viewed as a product, not an employee to the contractors users. We're called when they run out of answers. Q. How can I tell if my web designer is reselling my account to another hosting provider? Are they actually hosting it themselves for me? A. We offer a service that analyzes the hosting system that your "provider" is currently implementing for your domain name. We can see past the virtual DNS that they may be implementing to hide the fact that they are not hosting the site themselves. Rather that they are or may be outsourcing your site to another hosting facility. The fee for this is $8.00 per domain. This service we offer keeps providers honest or exposed. The best thing to do is to acquire our evaluation of your hosting situation, then approach the provider with the information that we give you. Our evaluations are 100% guaranteed effective. Q. How can I tell if my web site was actually designed by the web site designer? I don't want anything front-page template driven. I want a one-of-a-kind site. A. We can help you with that by analyzing the source code and by implementing a couple of other tactics. The fee for this service is $3.00. Q. I'm not financial institution! Why do you feel that I need all of this security on my computer? A. I'll be happy to show you after you get out of prison for the kiddy porn that was injected into your system by crackers. The same ones that made the anonymous phone call to the feds about that illegal smut server that you were running on your networked workstation without your knowledge. An unsecured Windows platform is perfect for this type of terrorism and having a plain firewall doesn't cut it anymore. We implement transparent endpoint security in such a way that you can't tell that your system is secured. That is outside of the test you may wish to run through a security auditing service. This is another thing that we keep simple. Also, The hardest thing for us to get past is the fact that everyone wants internet security, but very few people actually want to use it or have it implemented. They say that it's too much of a hassle. We just say that they have a choice. Q. If I need help with my IT systems or need to acquire a new system, what can you do for me? A. We can completely overhaul your computer systems and set them up to roll back to their previous states should a situation arise. Also, considering that people sometimes need on demand services and that we do set a timely TTR (Time To Repair) on all of our home grown systems. Any downtime is few and far between. We set up and service the systems that we implement in such a way that 95% of the time our physical presence is not needed should a situation occur. The other 5% we drive or our pilot takes us to your location. As a new customer you will need a service contract to insure mutual commitments and respect. As far as new systems go, we can point you in the right direction and make other recommendations as to what equipment to buy and how to properly administer your new infrastructure. Q. Can I host my own web site and e-mail at my home or office? A. Yes, with non recurring charges outside of your monthly broadband connection if you have business-class broadband. Business-Class meaning Ethernet, SDSL, T-1 or leased line. Check out the Broadband Buyers Checklist. Q. What are the benefits of hosting web and e-mail services on my own? A. True independence from your ISP or Web hosting provider. The only concern you would have is maintaining server security and insuring its connectivity. This also offers a layer of security from your ISP. None of the e-mail that goes to you or your customers lands on their ( your ISP's) system. It lands on yours. Another advantage to having your own server is that you can provide web services to others for a fee or some other type of compensation. This would in turn give you a return on your investment. Eventually your Internet connection, initial server hardware and network will be paid for on a monthly basis. You can look for future profits by hosting on your own! We can show you how! Q. I saw an ad for business priced ADSL. Should I get it for my office? A. Under no circumstances is ADSL (CRAP) to be considered any form of business class connectivity. The reason is that ADSL NEVER comes with Service Level Agreements. SLA's are one of the most important attributes of business class connectivity and if you decide that you want business class you should verify with the provider that a SLA is a core service for your new circuit. Certain providers in the US and locally are offering ADSL and wireless at quasi-symmetrical speeds. That's why we recommend going with an actual provider such as New Edge Networks, Covad, or AT&T. Something that provides a nationwide footprint, committed information rates, real IP assignments and one that has plenty of money in the bank. If you call or e-mail us about connectivity we'll be glad to talk with you about your options. If you are interested in true business-class internet gateway connectivity services, call us at (312) 242-1691. We'll help you make the right choice. Q. A local ISP is offering me a long term contract for DSL service. Should I sign up? A. No. A long term (anything over 1 year) service contract is only a ploy to keep you from going to a better service or one of their competitors. It has no advantages in the log run. You might get installation at a reduced rate or an extra month free. However, if a better service that is less expensive comes along, you would find yourself out of luck in acquiring it unless you wanted to pay for two service providers. Heavy early termination penalties apply to multiyear contracts if you were to terminate your contract early. Like they say, Advances in technology can happen overnight! In short, don't sign one, don't even look at one. Q. Why is the hardware that my ISP sold to me so expensive? A. There could be a number of reasons. They may be resellers of the networking hardware company and you could be paying up to 20% above list price or more. You can check all pricing information for your computer networking hardware at Price watch or Price grabber. Other reasons may be that they have a contract with the manufacturer to buy so many units or some other special interest issue that is causing it to be relatively high. Just check the prices before calling a potentially new Internet service provider and get a price quote on the hardware that they provide. Some ISP's will allow you to provide your own hardware which can save you a small fortune. The downside to that is that you can't get free support for the hardware that you bring during the provisioning (setup) process or any needed future technical support. This is where we come in to the picture. Q. I see DSL prices ranging $50.00 all the way up to $300 per month in my area. Is it all the same service quality? A. No, Business and Residential Digital Subscriber Lines are different in many ways, not just in price. Internet Service Providers that lean on being the cheapest in their area and boast about high customer coverage use their lowest priced "DSL" services to snowball potential customers. Meaning that they want the customer to believe that all DSL is the same. Except for theirs, which may happen to be cheaper. We promote the facilitation of sharing your circuit with friends and neighbors to offset the cost and profit from your business class internet account. There are many common and uncommon ways to share your network access and with that we help countless individuals and groups see and feel their returns. For information on the DSL medium we encourage those who want to know the truth to visit DSL Reports.Com and get real answers. Q. Can I become a service in my neighborhood to provide Internet access to my neighbors? A. You want to provide a Neighborhood Network? YES! We can show you how to get around obstacles, including any regulations that phone companies and ISP's may have and sweep most, if not all of the provisioning problems to the side. A Neighborhood Network is one of the many things that "commercial network providers" don't want you to know about. Plus the hardware is very inexpensive and just as comparable as the business class hardware if configured properly. Q. My ISP is offering wireless Internet access. If I get it can I share it? A. Yes, you can share it locally or 50 miles away. You can make a great profit by providing Internet access to others by sharing. If your ISP has a policy that does not allow you to share your connection for some reason, we recommend that you let your feet and wallet do the talking. Find one that does. The technology exists to share connectivity, so why not? Q. Why do you make your firewall logs public information? A. To expose the source IP address assignments and nodes to the public regarding their type of network activity towards our systems. Basically, if they try to connect to our servers or other computer systems in a way that we see as an intrusion attempt, or other reasons that the system is not meant to be connected to, we expose the illegal connection attempt to the public. We reserve the right to expose any activity to the general public when it comes to maintaining our network stability. The ports that we allowing to pass are now on a need to know basis. Any port scan or other port connection will be flagged and displayed on our firewall logs page. The URL for the logs is located here. From time to time we also create a .Pdf of our logs. The link is here for a more organized and detailed list of intrusion attempts. If you wish to discover the identity of any of the source IP addresses or the governing ISP's, go to Arin and cut and paste the address into their search box. Let us know what you find. This is completely legal. Also, you can read about false positives if it is a concern you have regarding Internet connections. Q. Sometimes I get an e-mail attachment that has been renamed. Why? A. This action is taken by our security system to help prevent known and unknown threats from penetrating our network and the networks that we design and deploy for our clients. All of our e-mail systems have a list of potentially dangerous file attachment extensions that our system uses to flag and rename files. A good practice is that if you are expecting a file to be sent through e-mail as an attachment to you, the sender should notify you in advance as to what the name of the file is and what it is intended use is. If the file you are expecting is from a known valid source, scan the file with Anti virus software after it is received, then rename it to its original file name. If you have Zone Alarm installed on your computer, it will give you a list of options on how to handle the file attachment through its Mail Safe facility. Download ZoneAlarm Pro now. (Forums) Q. Why do you use an E-mail Blacklist? A. We use a combination of different tactics to help avoid e-mail abuse towards our users. We do this through the use of blacklisting specific spam gang domains, IP addresses that belong to known spamming organizations or ISP's that support spammers, and DNS servers that are known to belong to mail abusing groups. If a valid user is ever rejected they are sent a link through e-mail on how to resolve the blocked e-mail transmission. We feel that e-mail itself is a poisoned medium and that there is no real right way to go about securing it outside of facilitating encryption or a private generic top level domain within your organization. E-mail blockers (snake oil) and other spam guards merely let you see the spam before you download any e-mail. If you still see it in the first place, then you've already been spammed. We are on a "whatever it takes" mission to heal the e-mail medium as far as our end of things are concerned. If you were to ask anyone else or any other outside groups on e-mail abuse prevention tactics you would get twelve different answers or opinions from seven different people. Q. Why do you trust services like spamhaus.org and other anti-spam services? A. Services like the ones listed on our e-notice page have been very reliable. Every day you put faith in services that reside inside and outside of your organization. Services like your ISP, your virus protection program, or your system administrator. What we do is offer white listing services to those incoming e-mail servers that are marked as abused and blacklisted. That way if there is an e-mail that bounces we help make it right between the two parties. We do investigate the situation thoroughly. And, unlike most providers, we never turn a blind eye. Q. Can I get e-mail services through the neighborhood network? A. Absolutely! You can use one of our many domains as your e-mail address or you can provide your own domain. You can have Pop3, Web Based (webmail), HTTP Mail (limited to 5 megabyte e-mail boxes), and forwarding. You can also set up an account to collect e-mail from other pop3 accounts that you might have with other providers. Pricing is only $60 per year. Q. I'm curious about your systems. Can I run a test on them? A. Unless you want to be blocked at our firewalls, no. It's very expensive to get unblocked. $300 per IP and or domain. This includes the fact that other forms of ill natured communications with our company will get the ISP that you use blacklisted across all of our DNS zones. We also quietly make every effort to have you thrown off of your internet access providers network as a "thank you" for your unauthorized network evaluation attempt. Your IP assignments will also be included in a real-time DNS blacklist (rbl.spatialrift.com) which is in use by the general public until we can physically verify that your ISP account has been terminated. So, be careful on what you try to do to us, the e-mail that you try to send to people might start bouncing or your circuit might fall off of the network. Again, "Testing" is a form of preemptive malicious activity as far as we're concerned. Q. When I go to a web site on the Internet, why does it take so long for some pictures to load in my web browser? A. The first thing you look at is the author of the web site and/or the creator of the images. Being that the majority of Internet users are non-broadband really has an effect on how a web site is designed, or a graphic image is prepared for online presentations. Poorly designed sites and graphics take forever to download. A good rule of thumb is that a homepage on a healthy dial up connection should take only 10 seconds or less to render. Just chalk it up to poor design. Some designers are known to expect other web surfers to have DSL, or other forms of high throughput connectivity to view their sites or images. We simply don't believe in that since we feel that everyone should have an equal opportunity to efficiently view the web. If you need your site optimized for speed and content, we can help for a lot less than others would charge. Q. I've noticed that there are some places on the Internet that I can access and other places that I can't. Why? A. We could go on and on about this but I'll try to narrow it down to a few specifics. First, your ISP may be blacklisted or the IP address that you are currently assigned to use through your ISP is blacklisted as the result of a user abusing the IP address that you now have. If it is blocked you will not be able to connect to that particular server or other facility within that organization. This is something that your ISP has to resolve. Migrate to another ISP if the problem persist. Another reason could be that there is a break in the Internet somewhere. Most likely with your ISP's upstream provider or the network that the destination computer that you are trying to connect to is off line. Most of the time this is temporary. One more common reason is that you may not be connected to the Internet or if you have a personal firewall it could be blocking you or the content of a site. You can call us for technical support regarding these issues if you are currently a customer or wish to become one. Q. You have a domain name that I'm interested in using. How can I use it? A. It would depend on what you are wanting to do with it. Only the end user can request a domain name from us, not the hosting provider or the web developer. All domain names that we hold in trust may be leased to a third party as long as they're used in good faith. We also decide if you qualify to use it based on what your preexisting site presents itself as. The domain names that we carry were acquired several different ways. They were either abandoned by their previous user or they were dangerously close to their expiration dates and had to be renewed. Or, they weren't federally trademarked. Some were acquired through a last minute decision from the previous end user not to roll out a web site. At this point we lease them for $39.95 per month or $400 per year. If you choose to have full discretion over the domain we can transfer it to you or your business. The transfer itself is not a sales event and can range anywhere from $400 to $1,500 or more based on the appraised transfer value of the domain name. We keep their appraised values on record internally within our network. All request for domain use must be made in writing via US postal service. A. DNS Life is a project that allows the facilitation of a Private generic Top Level Domain Name System. To find out more about it, visit UniqueRoot.com. Q. How can I contact your group? A. Call (312) 242-1691 or visit us at NeighborhoodNET. If you would like us to call you, drop us an e-mail with your name, phone number and best time to call. This will save you any long distance charges. You can also e-mail questions to service @ neighborhoodnet.net. You can send correspondence to 2043 Elm St., Quincy, IL 62301. You may contact us monday through friday from 9 am to 4 pm central. If you carry a service contract with us you may call anytime. Q. I need to move my network to a better provider. But I have too many IP address assignments. What Can I Do? A. Don't let your ISP or computer company fool you into thinking that you're stuck with them. We know the ropes. You can transfer your Internet Protocol Address assignments to another access provider or organization by calling us. We'll walk you through the process if needed. Q. What are your rates for consultations and services? A. Our rates for non-initial consultations are based on performance since most computer companies feel that their presence alone warrants payment regardless of the outcome of their visit. We offer a flat hourly rate of $44.00, and two service contract options for computer networks. The service contracts mandate prioritization, minimum time to repair (TTR's) and reduced rates on support calls. Since we get the job done right the first time every time, what would normally cost you between $65 and $125 per hour or more with the typical computer company or other technology firm, you would end up spending $12.50 per half hour through the facilitation of a prioritized service contract. If you shop around you'll find that it is impossible to find this performance-based convenience from a trusted source. Check out our unsolicited testimonials on our home page to see the true value in real service and client retention. We offer an updated 20 hour yearly contract for $500.00 and a 10 hour yearly for $320.00. All Cancellations for Initial consultations require a one week notice. Q. My Computer just stopped working. Why do system crackers want to crash my computer? A. Well, we would give you a lame parental excuse such as "because" or "that's just the way it is". But really, who needs to be reminded of bad slow spinning yo-yo parental upraising tactics. Rather, system crackers don't need a reason. They just need software that can be used in a malicious way along with poor parental supervision and shame-based emotions running rapid through their families. These elements are part of the formula that compiles a computer cracker. Crackers constantly try to validate self or parental imposed insecurities. A.K.A. Someone who was told yes every time they wanted something from a parent, etc. The best thing to do is take the law into your own hands and secure your systems the best way you know how to. Call us to learn their tactics and how to minimize your risk in the online world. Q. Is my ISP watching me? Do I have anything to worry about? A. Yes! Your ISP and the Feds can snoop in on you anytime they feel like doing so unless you have effective measures in place. They can do a lot of nasty things to you if they felt the "need to investigate" your activities. That's if they have enough customers to offset the balance if you were to catch on and migrate to another provider. They can and do track your online activity through the websites that you resolve on your computer's web browser, Intercept copies of your outgoing e-mail, and many other questionable acts that we have discovered through our experiences working for ISP's in the past. People have asked us about services like anonymizer and other anonymous proxy services. We think that they're all fine. The only thing you have to worry about is the operators of the proxy services themselves tracking you. We tell people that if they are ever confronted by an ISP and are wrongfully accused of malicious activity to just say that they have a wireless access point behind a firewall router and someone from the outside hijacked an ip address from their access point. This usually ends up forcing the ISP to run for a box of Kleenex. Just make sure you have the hardware in place just in case they decide to bum rush your house with the feds hanging out of their rear end. We can show you how to completely shut them out. Here are a few tips: 1.) Run your own DNS resolver locally within your LAN and point all of the machines TCP/IP DNS settings on your LAN to that DNS server. This way, they can't see all of the sites that you resolve on your workstation. It will also prevent your provider from poisoning the DNS. that you use. 2.) Use a vpn to a proxy that is not on your ISP WAN connection. 3.) Use e-mail encryption and encourage those that you communicate with to do the same. 4.) Use self-generated SSL certificates for your web servers. You won't want anyone else having the key to them if that concerns you...And we mean ANYONE! 5.) Harden your wireless access points with passkeys and not passwords. Keep them at 65 characters or higher. 6.) Don't accept phone calls from total strangers requesting personal or network information. Q. I can't seem to find the right domain name for my business. Can you help me? A. We have helped many individuals and business people find the right meaningful domain name to best solve their website addressing issues. Since we observe and respect a trademark holders rights regarding internet domain names, we never suggest any familiar sounding names to the people that we provide domain name consultations to. However, if a mark is found to be dropped and there are no intellectual property issues with that particular string of characters, we help those acquire the rights to that particular mark. We charge $22.00 for domain name consulting and appraisals. Q. The internet seems to bring out the worst in people. why? A. The internet has a way of bringing out a lot of different forms of behavior in people. Mainly because of it's convenience, or it's ability to make a user anonymous. Usually when a user has a sense of security and a "I'll never get caught for this" mind set, they feel the sense of relief of being able to be their true self. Think about it. Would you yell obscenities at someone who was 500 feet away or someone who was within arms reach? Q. You seem to be trading on fear when it comes to the subject of ISP privacy. Are you? A. Actually we're trading on fact. As long as the RIAA have their claws buried in your service providers back and the FBI's mass-monitoring tool exist within or around your ISP, your ISP will roll over on you like a Jeep just to save their own backsides. The thing that ISP's really prey on is the possibility that you may be too believing that they would never spy on you. Or that they would never have a good enough reason to eavesdrop in on your online activities. They may also prey on your laziness to implement encryption for your e-mail and website connectivity sessions. You may say that you have nothing to hide but that's not the point. The point is that nobody has any business being in your business for any reason unless you want them to. It's usually the folks that co-opt 9/11 as an excuse for everything that they can't accomplish or take control of who have a problem with you having online privacy. Updated GRC link. Q. I'm having problems sending e-mail to one of the domains that you host. What's the problem!? A. Since we're not willing to dumb our system down to make up for an administrator's or isp's lack of competence, go to this page an read the entire notice. If you are not sure what it means, contact your provider and pass it along to them. If they don't understand it then you should migrate your domain to our servers or have us redesign your infrastructure as our DNS records and other services have no red marks or other critical compliance issues. To check the status of your domain's DNS configuration, go to this site and enter in your domain name in the left hand box. Then compare our DNS records with your domain's current configuration. This facility will allow you to see how compliant your system is to true internet standards regarding your DNS issues. Also, outsourcing your e-mail services can cause many problems with DNS consistency issues. (rfc's). If you see any excessive yellow or red marks on your DNS report give us a call. If you are an adams.net user and your e-mail is failing to pass through our network you should migrate your domain to a trusted provider. A system that is configured by an RFC ignorant individual or group works as a spammers playground. Q. Why are you blocking my advertisements? I have a right to e-mail anyone I wish! A. No you don't pal! E-mail is a privilege. Not a right. Being able to randomly e-mail people with your unsolicited e-mail offers is not in any form a right. Nor is it a free speech issue if we choose to block you. If it were, I could run into a movie house and yell "fire" with impunity when in fact there is no fire. I Tell ya what, I'll blacklist your domains and when you come back with a copy of the bill of rights stating that you can SPAM anyone, anytime, with your useless slow-spinning bandwidth burning crap, we'll lift the block. But until then you're banished. Q. I want to outsource my business network to a computer company. Is that a good Idea? A. Well, unless you really trust them as individuals and not so much as a business, no. By outsourcing your network in having a third party "manage" your systems, you're opening the door to many types of possible privacy invasions and other losses. We get to know people on a individual and personal level before we allow any out sources to come in to our managed systems program. We also strongly encourage the use of data encryption for all types of communications. Ask your computer company if you can have root (full discretion) access to your managed system and see what they say. This also falls under the issues of social engineering in protecting your confidential business information. Q. I thought we were buddies. Why did you send me a bill for the work that I had you do? A. Please pay us, so we can pay them, so they can pay you. Q. My dialup connection is really slow. What can I do to speed it up? A. There are several things that you can try. First, make sure you are doing business with the Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) in your area that provides your regular phone service. This would be the company that all other phone services in your area buy their telephone lines from and then resell them to residential and business users. In order to find out who the ILEC is, you may have to call your phone carrier and ask. You can try asking your phone carrier to test for noise and other audible interferences on your phone line. Maybe try using a really good external modem that uses a serial port. we've found that the Zoom line of modems clean up a lot of problems regarding noise and other interferences. You'll also need to make sure that your operating system is in good shape and your modem firmware is up to date. If these tips are not helpful, change ISP's to see if that makes any difference in your line speed. Q. I have to send some large files to a customer. How should I go about doing so? A. I wouldn't advise using e-mail as it is not a file transfer protocol (FTP). We limit our e-mail attachment file sizes to one megabyte and asking us to modify our smtp server to allow anything more will be asking us to dumb our security system down. If you need to send large files we advise you to use a convenient free peer-to-peer file sharing application or Instant messenger. Instant messenger is free and is as easy as dragging and dropping a file from your desktop to a user name in your IM client. Your ISP may allow bandwidth to be wasted and abused via large e-mail file attachments so you should try using your free ISP e-mail account if you wish to send monolith files using e-mail. Our system at one time was used to send and receive illegal mp3's and we took file limiting measures to stop and deter any future system abuses. We will consult with you on the subject of secure legal file sharing if you wish to pursue active file transfers between you and your clients. Keep in mind that all business information can be read by your ISP and known or unknown third parties if you choose not to secure your data. Q. What happens if I don't back up my system files on a regular basis? A. Simply put. If you do not have a system recovery and security plan in place, your data is at risk of being lost or stolen. Also, data recovery can be quite pricey. Most places start their rate schedules at $1,500 for data recovery services and services such as this are rarely performed overnight. It can also be expensive to hire a tech to reinstall your system or attempt to recover your information from a damaged storage medium. The best thing to do is to make daily backups of your systems to avoid any prolonged downtime and technical support events. We can help you manage a data backup routine and crisis response so that if and when a situation occurs, you will be able to roll your system back to pre-incident condition. Q. I received an e-mail from someone who claims to know me. How do I tell if it is legitimate? A. The best way to authenticate an e-mail message from someone that you have never met is to see if the message that you received is digitally signed. Digital e-mail signatures are a near perfect utility of verifying a users identity through a trusted third party. Trusted third parties such as Verisign and Thawte are excellent choices for acquiring an e-mail signing certificate. Let us know if you're interested in becoming trusted online. Q. I got an e-mail from someone today claiming to be from an online business. But their e-mail address doesn't match their domain. Is it legit? A. No. Unless it is digitally signed consider it spoofed e-mail and discard it without looking at it. It could save you $$$ in tech support calls or visits in repairing your computer from an unknown worm or virus. That is if your e-mail server has no safeguards in place to prevent malicious activity towards your email account. If you are going to have an online business you must use your domain, not your hosting provider or ISP's domain name in your e-mail address. Also, using your domain helps to authenticate your presence in the online world to others that wish to communicate with you. No, not by the traditional ways anyway. We save hundred of dollars per month as a result and still keep the numbers in the green. The bad thing about traditional advertising is that if you decide to stop running your ad with a local newspaper, television or radio station, it leads others to think that if the ads stop, so has your business. Which with us is not the case and it never will be. This is how ad agencies and distributors keep making the big bucks. BY THEM APPEARING TO KEEP YOUR BUSINESS ALIVE! We do agree that there are effective and ineffective ways to advertise. And maybe we can help steer you in the right direction regarding onlie advertising. Our group is found and employed by word of mouth and URL links to our parent site. Q. I'm interested in learning how to fix my customers computer problems. I want you to show me so I don't have to call you again. A. If you are a computer company, we'd be more than happy to show you how as long as you'd be happy to allow us to add a zero or two on to our hourly rate. Payment is at time of service. Q. I have an e-mail server and I want to add a secondary smart host for it. Do you offer e-mail smart hosting as a service? A. Yes, We offer that to anyone who needs extra redundancy for their e-mail systems. You'll have to call for pricing as it is provisioned on a case by case basis. You'll also need to add additional records to your dns zone(s) to support our smart hosting system. You can also get secondary and tertiary dns services through us to boost performance of your entire domain name system. Q. I see this offer to install a free toolbar in my web browser. Should I do it? A. No. To us toolbars are to spyware and adware as e-mail marketing is to spam. They're too questionable and uncertain as to what their motives are. It's better to just use a search engine to find what you are looking for. Toolbars can also be invasive and hard to uninstall. Some are known to slow down your system as well. We never suggest installing any type of toolbar in your web browser just to be safe. Q. What equipment should I own and should I have full control over it in order to access my ISP? A. You need to own and have full control of everything on your network. Including the hardware that you use to access an ISP. Some ISP's will have you believe that you need certain equipment that they endorse and have a special interest in to access their system. They'll sometimes lead you to believe that they need to have full discretion on how it operates on your network in order to maintain "stability". This it totally not the case in any situation. The reason certain ISP's have this agenda is to prey on a users ignorance and to maybe gain unauthorized control of the end users network. ISP's also commit these acts to keep track on who the end user employs to work on their systems. Also to help lock themselves in to a particular business and to create additional revenue streams as a result of an "unauthorized tech damaging 'their' network". Thus adding the ability to charge the unknowing customer the price for a service call to fix the "problem" that the ISP originally created. They may also try to rent the customer premise equipment to the end user; definitely something to look out for. The best thing to do is to employ a trusted Information Technology Professional to keep the ISP or other form of internet access provider honest. Remember that the ISP stops at their antenna and/or their wire; everything else belongs to you, or should at least. If you were to attempt to change providers it would be very difficult if they owned your network or even a small yet crucial piece of it. They'll just tell you to read your contract if you don't like it. Which now for some unnamed ISP's it seems to be the trend. Also remember to stay away from long term Internet Service Provider contracts and free equipment. You will regret it like many others have if and when a better service comes along. Give us a call if you feel that you require an evaluation or are just curious of your situation. We may be able to help you break your long term contract. Q. We need help building and maintaining our IT systems. Can we hire you to help us get it off the ground? A. Yes. You may use us as a temporary outsource as your trusted IT department. A service contract is required and will be crafted based on your wants and needs. Most find this approach to incubating their IT systems very convenient. It's due to the fact that we're a trusted source and they don't have to hire and maintain a new employee. which can sometimes be a liability. In all cases this is construed as a liability-free pay-as-you-go footprint for starting up an IT department. When the service contract is fulfilled, there will be a 12 month grace period in between contracts if you should choose not to renew at the time your contract expires. Which means that we won't be able to help you again until one year has passed. Q. What is "The Managed Online Personal Computer"? A. This is an integrity-based program for individuals who are not sure how to stabilize or maintain a personal computer. Simply put....we manage a computer or group of computers for you. As individuals trusted through Thawte we implement and carry out this service effectively. This is a NeighborhoodNET exclusive! NO other group can offer this type of service while matching or exceeding our credentials. Privacy, integrity, and trust will NEVER be compromised. Note: From time to time information is requested through our network from outsiders regarding the activities of the folks that we assist in their daily routines. Activities that include e-mail use, data transfer, encrypted file systems, storage and other less popular facilitation's of technology. These potentially invasive and intrusive request are simply sent to the paper shredder, PGP wiped, and forgotten. Q. My ISP says that I can have business internet access but it's going to cost me a lot more per month. Why do they raise prices for businesses? A. This is just one of those things that some, if not all service providers do to increase revenue for themselves when selling to the ignorant or Computer Illiterate. There's really no technical reason unless the service that they are providing is genuine Business-Class connectivity. This is why we have a sheet that is available online that you can use in deciding what type of internet service is best for your business. We've seen a few providers in our area play games and cloud customers minds just to sell services that would be in most cases overkill. Or on the other side, lacking performance requirements in order to achieve specific market share goals. For example, providing a 1.5 megabit dsl circuit for one computer that's on every now and then, or sharing a dial up connection with fifteen machines. You've got to love the typical prey-on-ignorance salesman in these regards. As an additional note... You'll see non Business-Class service providers load you down with extra online storage or additional e-mail accounts in order to "justify" their increased business rates. These are just worthless fillers and at the same time, are things that we can help you provide yourself without additional recurring charges. Your web and e-mail address should also contain your personal or business identity in some way; not your service providers. Also, It's our opinion that nothing looks more unprofessional than an e-mail or web address that belongs to an ISP or web hosting outfit. Using such an address give you no real identity or any availability of online trust to your potential clients. Q. I purchased a higher service level of connectivity from my ISP, but it still doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. Everything is crashing together and falling off of my network. I have Voice, Video, and Data. HELP!!! A. Not a problem. We can help you by first telling you to go right back to your previous service level that you had with your isp and call us to set up an appointment. You're just having bandwidth management issues. Q. I need a good web address for both e-mail and my website. I can't afford to buy one from you so can I lease a subdomain? A. Yes, you can have as many (subject to availability) e-mail addresses and sub domains as you want. With all of the hosting options that go with them. You can also have a full third level zone (http://you.example.com - you@you.example.com) if you would like to be more organized. As you already know, the domains we offer are very generic so they won't be promoting us. This leaves a level playing field for others who share our domains. We'll have to give you a quote as to what the set up and monthly fees will be, so don't be shy about calling us. We won't hassle you or give you the runaround like ISP's or domain sellers do. Also, there won't be any contracts or minimum commitments as it is a prepaid service. Q. It seems like the computer guy is always out at my place working on something. Is this normal? A. Well it depends on what he is doing or what you are having him work on. If you have a scheduled maintenance contract maybe it's normal activity. We know of several places that create work for themselves in just the same way as a brain surgeon or doctor would. Sometimes in order to sell a new medicine, there must be a new condition to justify the sale. It's hard to say but like science, it's "best guess". Take note that if the computer guy is always out at your location doing work, the chances are really good that you are their only client. If you are a client of ours and we make a recommendation to you, we initially ask not to be the one that provides the solution. This way we can stay unbiased in analyzing and assessing your IT problems. Give us a call in regards to your situation as we are not in business to create work for ourselves. Q. I work for a computer company and I think it's wrong that you are providing information that is hurting our business and taking us out of the loop. You're giving away our secrets and taking bread off of our table. Why are you doing this? A. First of all, we are a community-orientated facility and hold the public interest in high regards. We also act as a consumer advocate on many issues related to technology groups. What you consider a prey-on-ignorance secret, we consider public information that people benefit greatly from on a minute-by-minute basis. If there is something that you don't like about this site, you're more that welcome point your web browser to another site and finish out your day there. Nothing is going to change here since we truly believe in our work and the people we help. That's just how it works these days. Check out NewEgg.Com, Pricewatch.Com, and PriceGrabber.Com! Second, chances are that they (your computer company) are greatly overpriced on both their systems and hourly rates. Ask them how they validate their rate schedules if this isn't true and why they (their consumers) should continue doing business with them. Also show them our response to your comments and questions on this site. Let the consumer be the judge! Third, we've found in most cases that computer companies feel that their presence alone in any situation warrants payment regardless of the quality of the performance that is delivered to the customer. It's also because they may have a lot of serious overhead and incompetent employees that they have to 'hold hands' with throughout the day in order to get through the day. This is a very expensive and risky business model that most companies that may be like yours are forced to work with. Mostly because the 'Administrators' that they employ in general have a demigod complex and feel that their hourly wage should be comparable to the hope diamond. Which in all cases is completely ridiculous. Think about it...When they send out billing @ $65.00 or even $125.00 per hour and they're only giving their Admin $9.95 or $25.00 per hour (Noting that multiple hourly minimums is a sign of poor work performance intentions from the get go anyway), what motivation do you think they'll have towards perfectly completing the task that they assigned them to undertake? Our guess is that it would be null at best. Finally, we recommend that they get out of the business if they can't realize and work with the fact that things are different than they were eight years ago. Q. I keep getting all of this weird stuff popping up on my PC and my computer is slow. I've only had it for seven months. What could be wrong with it? A. This happens to all new users at one time or another that use the internet. Chances are that you use Internet Explorer for all of your web browsing needs and you're probably unknowingly picking up malicious software as you surf the web. Internet Explorer is a great browser if it is initially configured correctly and all of the security holes are closed. Just like your windows operating system, "out-of-the-box" IE is pretty unsafe. We recommend that you stop using the internet until you get all of that bad software off of your computer. Before you can begin to resolve this issue we would advise you to download a copy of Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is the most secure free web browser in the world and is the most popular alternative to the web browser that comes with your computer. After you back up the software that you want to keep, set your PC back to factory setting by using the rescue disk that came with your PC. Then install Firefox and recover your backups. Firefox can be downloaded from http://www.mozilla.org. Remember that there is always someone here at The Neighborhood Network that can help you in a timely and effective manner. Q. Do you build or sell computers? A. Since we don't hold ourselves out as a computer company, no. If a client request one of our intelligent self healing systems that we design and use internally within our organization, then we'll provide one to them. Again, only by special request. All of our systems are liquid and air cooled Pentium 4 - 3.6 Ghz or higher carrier class server and rendering platform quality. Also designed, built, and tested by certified IT professionals. Not some computer franchise reseller or some dude selling toys on the other side of his store. The nice thing to know is that you'll never see us peddle any 'mickey mouse' $499 specials as they would scream for an upgrade shortly after the initial boot. For around $900, our systems make calculating Pi a breeze! Q. I received an e-mail from your group. It says that I need an e-mail certificate to reply. How do I fix this? A. You need to get your e-mail trusted by acquiring and installing an e-mail certificate in your e-mail client software. You'll also need to tell everyone else you trust and communicate with to do the same in order for it to be 100% effective. What a certificate does is add actual trust, authentication, and encryption to all of your e-mail transactions. By using an e-mail certificate no other individual or group will ever be able to fake (spoof) your e-mail address or impersonate you online. E-mail forgery is a major issue for most people who at one time or another get mail from themselves to themselves. Or, get mail from someone they never sent mail to claiming to be providing some sort of reply. But since most people just don't get the fact that having trusted mail is the simplest way to resolve these types of problems, the e-mail issues that you may be currently experiencing will continue to go unresolved. So get a certificate and install it now. It's free and there is plenty of help if assistance is required to help you get trusted online. Q. Do you perform background checks on people you work for and people who work with you? A. No, background checks are invasions that never give the complete story. The typical background check will give a total stranger access to your life and everything in it. Ask yourself, Is that really a good idea? We didn't think so since closet criminals and other identity thieves love to perform background checks on people. We give each individual a chance to meet with us personally so that we can form a first hand opinion of their character. If anything, we basically "card you at the door" and keep nothing on physical record. Our track record of selecting clients and co-workers have proven this method of selection to be very effective and we never start working with someone right off the bat. We build trusted relations the real way, not a lazy intrusive underhanded given way. When you get a chance, ask your potential new employer for a copy of his or her ID and Social Security card. If they refuse, treat them like they'd treat you...Give them the boot and warn others. Create an employer blacklist while your at it...We'll host it for free! Also, if it means anything, we've set up our organization to protect it from itself so that if there were an incident, there would be no direct or indirect damages to anyone. These are the minimum security requirements and framework for ALL businesses that have employees or partners. Employee Background Check = Potential Identity Theft! Q. We want a faster cable internet connection, but our ISP only offers 4 megabits down and 384k up per second for a residential access account . I want to double that speed and share the connection throughout the organization. What can we do? A. Since the ISP's are watching this site, this is a question that we always provide the answers in great details on site. Our service consultation is in direct response to the fact that ISP's in general love to sell the same thing over and over when possible to the same computer illiterate consumer. We'll set your system up to provide the level of access you desire after we engineer a second tertiary account to your residence or one that is nearby. After this, you'll be up and running at 8 megabits down and 768 up, or even higher! You'll also be able to share whatever unused (idle) bandwidth that you aren't using for a fee or split hte expense with others in your neighborhood. This will eliminate the providers acceptable rip off policy and silently reduce any future sales in your immediate area for internet access. Q. How do you select your partners and co-workers? A. We believe that everyone deserves a chance to prove themselves in the right way. That's why we take a prospective partner or worker out on jobs and create a small proving ground under our close supervision. Also, we require them to take two computer-based test. We keep it simple and stable. They're not brought on board only because of a great personality or shiny pumped up resume. In the end, we go on what our gut feelings tell us. Q. No matter who I call to help me, I keep having problems with my network. What's wrong? There's been 10 different companies out here and i still can't get it to work right. A. You really need to learn how to manage your own network if other 'professionals' don't seem to be cutting it for you in resolving your network issues. Apparently as it stands and as history may dictate, nobody can fix your 'problems'. If you want to have a truly stable environment, you'll need a managed system provided by a single trusted, certified and experienced administrator or consultant. This does not include someone who just got out of college or other trade school. Remember that proven successful experience, and the highest level of earned trust are the key critical points to consider when hiring an administrator or other form of IT consultant! As a jumping off point for you, there needs to be a single point of contact for your network. There's also a serious need for one person and one way of keeping your network in shape. This does not mean that since it is your network, you can allow yourself to 'fix' things when your admin is not present since history dictates that you need to be saved from yourself. As you have already learned, having multiple 'consultants' attempt to iron out your problems does more harm than good. Also, a complete teardown and rebuild might get things off to a good restart using the latest and greatest of elements one computer or device at a time. Noting also during the restructuring of your network you should avoid using hacked, pirated software, and outdated hardware, along with following your software vendors recommendations as to what hardware to use. This would be a great second point of interest for you to follow. We provide managed systems on a short-term contractual basis and all of the details are in the new 2006 service agreements. if you know of another agreement holder that does business with us, they may find this revision more appealing and beneficial than the last. The 2006 agreements were revised on 8/12/05. We hope this answer helps you in some way. If not, there's always AOL. Q. A computer business is offering an oil change for computers. I didn't know that computers needed oil changes. Is this possible and do I need one? A. No, outside of the drive systems that computers use to store data, they have no movable parts that require any form of lubrication. Sometimes a company will use a term that you might be able to relate to. What an oil change is in most cases is a service that brings your PC back to almost 'factory' settings. Think of it more as a 'Tune Up' or a 'Recovery'. With the exception of PC case fans that can be brought back to life by using white lightning or wd40, no petroleum fluids are required for your PC to stay in shape. Q. Hey! I'm a scientist and I've had a degree for 10 years! Why do I keep having all of these computer problems? I shouldn't be having any. A. Here's a few jumping off points for you to consider while we try to help you in answering this question. First, pull your degree off of the wall and try waving it at your PC. This might intimidate it into complying with you in wanting it to function correctly. Second, have a shoe tying contest with it. If you win, then the problem is not with you, the problem is with your PC. It's simply broken! Third, check and see if the problem exist between the chair and the keyboard. If there is no problem, then it's your PC that is wanting you to have a bad day for some unknown reason. Remember, It's all in good fun! In short, just because you are a 'Scientist' or have a degree in something makes you no different than anyone else when it comes to having computer problems. A poorly maintained Computer is prone to issues and throwing an ego trip around doesn't do anything but drive people that could help you away. Now that's science! Q. A computer company that my company uses said that I can't backup my computer without their help. Is this true or are they creating work for themselves? A. We've heard a lot of really good ones but this one's really up there! Yes you can back up your data without the assistance of ANYONE else. You might need a one time training session; but that's it. -- ONE TIME. If a computer company tells you this or anything else that seems a little weird again, send them to us. We'll keep them honest. Also, they're not only creating work for themselves, they're ripping you off and lying to you. There is a really good book out there called 'Absolute Beginner's Guide to Computer Basics'. It cost around $19 and you can pick it up in any good online or brick-and-mortar book store. Q. I work in the IT field as a consultant. It seems that no matter who i work for, i get treated like a dog. Is it normal for consultants and tech support people to get mentally abused by the less knowledgeable and talented? A. Unfortunately, yes...In most cases anyway as everyone is depending on you to keep the money rolling in to a certain extent. To a 'boss', a system that is down or not functioning efficiently is equivalent to throwing money to the wind. Granted that sometimes this isn't the case. They just need their porn or gambling activities to go totally uninterrupted. What really stinks is when the 'boss' up and decides to make you work out of an empty basket (bosses are notorious for that). They'll tell you that you just need to make do with what you have because it has always worked that way and that you need to actually earn your money and that McDonalds is always hiring. Which you and I both know is ALWAYS the 'best logic'. These are the same logical people that swat at bees with their bare hands because the bees better know what their prominent, uppity last name is and they dare not sting them. We've experienced at one time or another the "I want something for nothing's" and the "you better get me that or else's". To experience them is normal since those type of ignorant people are everywhere. It's safe to say that we've learned how to avoid them and have been doing so for quite some time. It's not clear as to why those folks exist. Maybe they're just having a tough time at home. Who knows? Our advice to you is to do the best you can to prevent situations that require your true talents and abilities and to always be selective as to who you work for. It will pay off in the long run. Here's a nickels worth of advice. If they've been through three different IT consultants in the last month, tell them that you aren't interested in their money or loyalty. Also, remember to not take it personal. It happens to all of us that actually earn a decent wage. Note: A take on client server relationships We ourselves as consumers, understand that the money we invest on goods and services
must yield the positive results that we expect. In all fairness, parties involed are always on the understanding that in any transaction understand that free will does exist. That's why when there is a transaction, both parties are to be considered on equal ground. One party can sell to whoever they want to, and another party can choose who they want to do business with. It's an equal balance that demands courtesy and respect to one another at all times when that balance is truly established and maintained. Q. I can't control what my employees do on the network when I'm not looking. Is there something I can do that will allow me to get a handle on it? A. Yes. You will need to tear down and rebuild your network in such a way that it will allow you to develop and enforce a new corporate policy. This is referred to as a user behavior modification. Q. This computer company has a rate of $130.00 per hour with a four hour minimum for on site service. Is it really justifiable for them to have this policy and rate? I need help with my systems! A. We feel that anyone can make and enforce their own rules providing that those rules do not create a detriment to others. Since it is not necessary for you to employ that particular group due the the exorbitant rate and the existence of other competing companies, then you really don't have any reason to be concerned about their policies. You have to look at the pros and cons on everything when looking to a professional or group for assistance. Track record, profitable years in business, true client satisfaction, consistency, reputation and integrity in general are the primary items to consider when contracting a pro to iron out your issues. At a glance, we would safely assume that they have this policy in place for no good apparent reason other than they just feel that it is what they're worth. One of the services that we offer is providing market research and a unbiased opinion for those who aren't sure who to go to that are in situation similar to yours. Call us for correct answers to your questions. Q Our mainframe is acting funny. What did your network do to it? A. First of all, we purposely don't do mainframes, nor would we ever ask to have access to one with administrative or other user privileges. We only assist in getting the mainframe on the network by providing the vendor network subnet info and an available ip address. This keeps us in the clear as far as your service contract goes with the mainframe provider. The problem is with your mainframe vendor and administrator as we may have already proven. Chances are that they are having problems that they can't effectively resolve and they don't want to be alone in coming up with an excuse for you to chew on. We will give you an educated guess as to what their problem may be if you feel it will help you debunk their statements or accusations. We understand that it's hard for "professionals" like them to wipe egg off of their face in instances like this. So there you have it. No Mainframes. Also, no fairytales. Q. What are your non-political views in regards to computer and telecom companies? What do you feel that the future holds for them as well as yours? A. Not sure if providing a non-political answer is possible at this point. But anyway, they all seem to come and go. As far as for the future, we feel that all of the rural telecom's will eventually be rubbed out or bought out and the "leading" area computer companies will fold due to national providers legally low balling competitive territories. Plus the fact that the going trend for computer company employers is to hire anyone that can pass the interview while lacking the expertise and proven experience to provide perfection for their clients. What this ends up providing is non-justifiable high rates, lack of customer confidence in businesses of the like, poor quality of work and high employee turnover for the computer company itself. We've also watched those who have attempted to put other companies out of business fall hard as a result of careless and reckless operations of themselves and their business. But this is just our foresight. New technologies can change things for better or for worse depending who you are or what you represent. Additionally, the specific services that we provide on multiple levels will become harder to acquire elsewhere for the end user regardless of what the future brings. This is due to the fact that we have crafted our unique multiple-technology framework from the ground up and depend very little on outside resources. Now since we've tossed out our "bad list" clients and know what to look out for when developing new lifetime partnerships, our services and strategic partnerships will continue to provide stronger best-in-class resources for the new and advanced computer system end users and outside providers of information technology services. Q. I'm setting up a domain for my boss. I need to know what DNS records and corresponding e-mail accounts need to be created and implemented for my system. A. You need to reference the RFC's to get the standards on what you need to provide your system with regarding your DNS zones and appropriate e-mail contacts. Get a copy of RFC2142 for E-Mail. Then download RFC1035 and RFC1033. If this stuff seems confusing, call us and set up an appointment. Q. I keep getting these internet scam e-mail messages. Where can I learn more about internet Scams? A. We are moderators and major contributors on the Anti-Scam site Scams.Net. Feel free to read and post messages regarding the e-mails that you are receiving. Someone may be able to help you stop the e-mail messages from finding their way into your inbox. Q. Can you explain your fees for services? A. There are a few options for you in order to obtain our services. There is our hourly rate. This rate is like our other rates that are based on performance. The fixed hourly is @ $44.00 per hour. The other two rates vary since they are service contract rates. We offer ten and twenty hour one year service contracts that are available only to businesses and grant funded organizations. Since we don't believe in multi-year contracts, one year is the maximum duration that a contract can be in effect. If you were to break the twenty hour down into an hourly rate, you would be paying $25.00 per hour. The ten hour would be around $32.00 per hour. Both are billed in half hour increments. An accurate billing system is also in place for all contract holders. With that all clients are required to sign a log sheet when services are rendered in order to provide an accounting for their time and a detailed listing of the work performed by our specialist. The reason that we don't provide a multi-year contract is so that a client can't be locked down to an agreement that might not be right for them eight months down the road. There are no early termination fees for any contracts. Q. This company claims to host a number of domains on their DNS system. I don't believe them since they just went into business yesterday. Can you tell us how may domains they really host? A. We can verify this information for you since we have access to the top thirteen DNS root servers. All you have to do is provide us the name of their DNS server. It should be similar to their domain. For example, if their business site web address is www.example.com, their dns server should be ns or ns1.example.com. Like everything else in life there is a small fee for this service. Q. Hey! I thought the internet was easy to use. How come I'm having so may problems using it? I was told it was going to be really easy. There's no beginning and no end to this answer. You might want to consult a professional of some sort to see if the issue is the 'internet'. The person that told you that probably told you that you can download a copy of Halo 2 to your wristwatch and play live from under the bayview bridge using that new wireless thingie. Q. We breached our service contract. Is there anything we can do to reconcile it? A. Unfortunately since we give a generous amount of time to review and modify the contract to suit your needs, No. The old contract is no longer valid and has been irrevocably terminated. If you wish to have us continue to support your system in any manner, a new contract will need to be signed and all fees will have to be remitted before the new contract can go into full effect. The language in the new contract will be identical to the contract that was terminated due to the breach. Q. How do you handle legal information and communications? A. We do accept legal information and request for legal information. There are stipulations though as to how information is delivered to us and what the prerequisites are in being able to successfully deliver that information. We don't accept any packages or other mailings that require a signature unless it is not legal info in nature. Any letters from attorneys or other state entities will be either returned in the sealed envelope they arrived in or destroyed. If we are asked or required to testify in any legal matters we are to be served with a meritorious summons to appear. Providing that we don't quash the subpoena, only then will legal matters be discussed in a court of law. This policy is in effect due to law firms in the past writing us and attempting to get free IT consultations. They most certainly don't work for free so why should our firm? Other reason being that attempts were made in the past to scare tactic us into doing something that we would end up finding to be deceptive or fraudulent in nature. In short, we're only concerned with findings and legal interpretations of judges and juries. The rule is if legalist wish to communicate with us without a judge or other magistrate present, they can contact us by recorded phone or other electronic medium. If personal e-mail is a desired it will require a digital certificate or pgp signature to be present in the e-mail message to help validate their identity. A. Click here to find out about rootkits and their computer privacy and security issues. We've included additional search engine results for those that want something outside of the typical google search facility. Q. Where is the best place to store my public PGP key online? I need others to be able to find it with little effort. A. The best place is the PGP Global Directory. Here's why. Q. Why don't you produce a list of all of your clients on your site? A. Great question! There are many reasons but we think just a few will answer this question accurately. First, the business we do with others is just that; our business and not the rest of the world's. What happens between us and our clients whoever they may be at the time remains private even after successful completions of our task. Even if it is a one time thing. We consider business relationships to be consistent, sacred and confidential. Second, we avoid the mapping process as well. Not knowing who our clients are has many advantages to the integrity of maintaining a stable client base. We don't show off or brag about how many clients we have in order to make some political statement or intimidate those who feel that are in the same business as we are. We keep it simple. We keep it sound. We keep our business out of everyones face. Finally, we never ask or put into question who their clients are or rate them based on how many clients they may or may not have. This action is based on one of the many facets of maintaining mutual respect. Q. What is the best type of password to use that will help me secure my information? A. We don't recommend the use of a password at all. Passwords are easily broken because they are too easy to remember in most cases. We advise the use of passkeys. Here are some examples of passkeys that vary in nature and are totally unbreakable if used properly. Use of passkeys such as these are a must if you wish to harden your wireless access point, encrypt data files and digitally encrypt and sign your e-mail. Anything less than a complicated and impossible to remember passkey will be somewhat easy to compromise for the determined thief or other unauthorized user. The Gibson research corporation site offers a generator for making great passkeys. Click here to generate your passkey. Passwords = YUCK! - Passkeys = AMAZING! Q. Companies claim to be selling safer e-mail systems. I want to know the truth about them so what do I need to know? A. It depends on who you are, where you are and what you're doing, or plan to do e-mail-wise in the present or near future. There seems to be many companies with the 'right" answers but when you dig a little into the particulars, it seems that most if not all of those right answers end up being just good marketing ploys. Here's what we recommend as well as employ in our private practice. Digitally signed and encrypted e-mail! This is what those companies don't want you to mess with or let alone know about. Every popular mail client supports the ability to allow the use of digital signatures and encryption for your e-mail messages. This, combined with free e-mail server software, offers you the opportunity to chop all of the zeros off of any price tag that those "cost effective" and "affordable" companies throw at you. It's companies that offer web/e-mail filtering software, appliances, and a constant stream of updates are the ones that usually have a tough sale ahead of them. This is why they try to get you on multiyear programs and that they have the opportunity to get you "hooked". To eliminate initial and recurring charges we support open source and ad-free no cost software. Programs such as mozilla firefox and thunderbird are great examples of free high-quality software that is always evolving, improving and helping to produce great online experiences for end users. If you would like to get rid of your e-mail issues without the intrusion of an non-trusted third party all you'll have to invest in is a little bit of our time. Pick up the phone or e-mail us. Q. I have a computer connected to the internet and I want to share the connection via wireless with other computers in my area. How can I do this? A. We provision network features such as internet connection sharing, bandwidth aggregation and traffic shaping through the use of redundant WAN's, software and binding multiple connections to achieve the fastest and most efficient circuit that you could ever want or need for your wireless and wired systems. If wireless is what you want to provide to others the solution is very simple. All you need is a few hours of our time and a open mind. Q. We would like to meet with your group. What would it cost for an initial consultation? A. It would depend on how you would like to meet with us. Generally it's on a per hour basis. In some cases the hourly fees can be refunded if a contractual or bloc time relationship is established. The rate is $44.00 per hour with inclusive expenses. You should call and explain to us what your needs are. Q. Our son is in college and we have a firewall. We're secure. What do you think about that? A. Well, we'd like to believe that statement carried any weight but unfortunately it doesn't. That's not just our opinion, it's a fact. For all we know he could be majoring in fashon design or theology. Security is a process, not a product. Good luck. Q. I have a problem with people reading my e-mail when I'm away from my desk at work and catching it on their machines. Help me stop that from happening! A. Visit MyPGP.Com. Q. Can't we get services that you offer from another company? A. You can get services that are similar. But you can't get us if you go with them. The biggest and most important difference is that you will always see the same polite and courteous faces every time we visit with you. The only elements that will change over time is our ever expanding knowledge, services and abilities. With us you'll get a higher degree of performance and professionalism that you'd expect to get with your hard earned money. You can expect and receive perfection, privacy, integrity and irrevocable trust. One of our sayings is that "We don't get paid to care...We genuinely do it for free." Q. What does that mean when I see a company advertise "And much, much more..." in their ads? A. It means that they're just trying to look bigger than what they are and that they actually offer very, very little. You can stump them by asking this question to them in person. They hate it. Q. Every time I move to a different internet service provider, I end up having to change my e-mail address. I want one e-mail address for the rest of my life. What can I do? A. The best thing to do is buy a real, personal or generic e-mail and web address from The Name Site. This way, you'll never have to change your e-mail or homepage address. You'll also be able to use it to pull your e-mail from old as well as new ISP e-mail accounts without missing a beat. These names are great for mobile phone and wireless laptop use! The names are $5.00 per month per address. $10.00 for both web and e-mail nomenclature. Get the meaningful internet name that you've always wanted! Q. Does your company compete with computer companies? No, we mostly find ourselves watching them beat each other down from the sidelines then go out of business or downsize. We aren't considered a computer company by any means. This confusion is caused by them claiming to offer the services that we do. We've heard things like "Hey, we're doing that." or "We offer this service too." But honestly, pretty much anyone can say those things and attempt to dumb their way through them and charge you a large fee while preying on your ignorance. In the same instance, presenting you with an astronomical invalid invoice. There's one company that comes to mind in Quincy but we won't get into that...at least not on this FAQ. Q. How much is a computer technicians time really worth? A. That answer is subjective if you've never had a good company work for you. It really depends on who you are, where you are, who they are and where they are. It also depends highly on their reputation. We can tell you that in most cases, a tech never gets paid what they feel that they're worth. One computer company that we are very familiar with will bill you $65 per hour and pay the tech that works for them $9 out of that $65. That is regardless of performance. What would the motivation be for that tech to take any less time than that to complete their job? Probably not much. An accurate answer in our opinion would be $44 per hour pro-rated with positive results and a written guarantee on all work performed. We never recommend paying any more than that to any company. Unfortunately, most still do because they don't know any better. Q. Will you provide information or contract for hire services for an Illinois state agency? A. No. We have other reasons. But our main reason for this policy is that the state of illinois cannot be named as a defendant in any lawsuit. If we get hurt on the job, we can't easily initiate tort litigation. So we're doing them and us a favor by blacklisting them. Sorry, but we don't work for "hand washers". Q. What are your views on Net Neutrality? A. Network Neutrality has become an ugly subject for most people, especially us. We feel that all forms of network providers should stay away from any form of favoritism. If they choose not to avoid it, we'll pursue generating a list of providers and other companies for end users and ISP's to import in their web browsers and DNS systems in order to quietly block access to those particular companies that choose to mandate "toll booths" on the network. Tthat's our view... ( Read More ) Q. I am mailing about one-hundred or more people at a time. For security and privacy reasons, how do I keep the e-mail addresses hidden from the other people on my list? A. You have to Blind Carbon Copy your message to everyone on your list. In your e-mail client you'll have options that will let you send your message BCC: as well as by other methods of delivery. Your message should also be addressed in a general manor to your "Group". The only way this will be effective is if your list of users has never been previously mailed to by you. If it's too late for you then I suggest changing your "From" or "Return" address then remail your messages. Q. My web guy says it takes 48 hours to set up my domain. Is this true? A. Well, it depends on many things. It could be that he out sources to a hosting provider which slows things down. He could very well be just a reseller for a web hoster and not actually running his own web hosting network. He might be just taking his time. Simply put, you don't want to confuse "setting up a domain" with the root DNS servers being updated with the new registration information. What they probably meant was that the likelihood of most dns revolvers would be updated in 48 hours. In all actuality, it takes us 15 minutes from registration or a name server change of a domain to route globally. How? Because we actually know what we're doing and we've been doing it for a very long time. We don't outsource to hosters for many reasons. This being one of them. The main reasons we don't outsource are issues based on performance, reliability, trust and privacy. We actually know you and you actually know us!
Q. I noticed that an ISP states in their ad that I can have "Up to" 1.1M of SDSL services. Can I really have that and is that what I would be actually getting? A. First, when they mean "Up to", that means technically the possibility exist that you "may" get that level of service sometime. That, in our opinion is an ad ploy to help get you to go with them. Though there are many other ploys, this one for them is definitely a keeper. The truth is that you would never get that service level connectivity due to the overhead that a particular circuit like the one you mentioned has. At best, If the endpoints in that circuit showed somehow that you were getting 1.1M of connectivity from your LAN to the DSLAM, you would still have 256k or more of management overhead. So it's not exactly 1.1M of service (remember to always read the fine print before you consider a new line). This type of leeway that companies give themselves allows them to stretch their systems out and at the same time, resell the bandwidth and throughput that you should be getting to someone else. A company that we know of that sells business class provisioned 1.1M SDSL circuits, adheres to only 256k minimum service level. So their good to go if your service with them would drop to 256k. After all, they do offer a T-1 if you need something better than 256k. Q. I've been through two computer hard drives in the last two months. What's wrong? A. Can't say for sure why that's happening. We can tell you how to minimize the possibilities of your drive failing. Regular maintenance, keeping the drive cold and performing backups are the two most important responsibilities in owning and operating a computers hard disk system. Q. I have a legitimate complaint against a company and I want to spread the word. How should I go about it online? A. First, register a complaint dot com domain name or several names that describe how you feel about that company. Some good examples would be "companyname" sucks.com, blows.com, bites.com, eats it.com, bites the tip off.com, can suck me.com, eats poop.com. Some have gone as far as using "FU@Kcompanyname".com. After that, you'll want to get hosting and start a web log with the blog framed inside your hosted web page. Then send the URL to the legal department and CEO of the company that you're complaining about (getting a fax confirmation works best) Throw it around to your local paper and news channels as well. Maybe publish in in your local paper. You could also submit it for review at WebGripeSites.Com or post the link on google groups. That should pretty much do it as for getting the word out on your new and effective gripe site. For more information on web griping, visit WebGripeSites.Com. If you are concerned with your web host shutting down your gripe site due to a legal threat, we will take care of that worry for you. If you host it with us, that worry will not exist. This website shows you how to host your own website from your home or office. If you went that "self help" route. it would force the company that is ignoring your complaint, to complain to you directly. Q. How would you treat a computer system or network if you discovered questionable material on it? A. This is another one of those things that sets us apart from the rest. If that time should ever come, we would not disclose ANYTHING to ANYONE directly or indirectly about any material that may exist on any system or network. We follow this policy due to the fact that it is way too easy to install software or other material on a system with or without the system owners knowledge. We will, if asked by the client, give an analysis of the data on their systems or the type of traffic passing through their network. But only if we're asked to do so. So the answer is manditory nondisclosure. We won't offer information about any computer systems or other forms of technology that we encounter. Ever! Unless asked by the system owner. Note: We've encountered computer companies and independent consultants disclosing information to untrusted third parties in order to draw attention to themselves and obtain additional revenue. Remember to ask them this question. If they say "unless asked by law enforcement", run, don't walk away from them. Q. How can I secure my Web-Based E-mail communications? A. First, the people, person and/or group that you'll be communicating with need to be doing the exact same thing or better for your communications to be considered secure. They have to be set up with PGP/GPG and have a public key for you to use to encrypt your e-mail to them. Likewise, they'll need your public key. Visit myPGP for more information.
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