September News Today is:

It ain’t your teenagers annoying chat program anymore!

“SAN FRANCISCO -- Once a cool tool of the teen set, Instant Messaging has been spotted lately sporting a brand new pair of wingtips. But even though corporate usage of short messaging is skyrocketing, many firms are at a crossroads,” says Michael Singer

One of the most annoying parts of using “Instant Messaging” (IM) is that there are so many different choices from AOL to MSN to ICQ.  Every time you make an acquaintance professionally or personally you have to find a new program to install to keep up with the new contacts.

Wouldn’t it be nice to install one program and keep up with your business associates, your teens and your personal acquaintances?  Thanks to Trillian by Cerulean Studios the word interoperability or one program that handles all the IM platforms from Yahoo to ICQ, has become a reality. 

I have personally been using Trillian for the past 3 months and would recommend it to anyone who has to use more than one IM platform.  I found it easy to install and the inter-face is user friendly.  A word of caution, be sure you write down your name and password for each platform you use before you configure Trillion.  It will ask you for your user-id or number and your password.  That is easy to forget when you have the option to auto sign-in. 

“Trillian, which competes with Odigo and Jabber to provide IM interoperability platforms, has enjoyed heady growth among consumers recently, according to research from Jupiter Media Metrix. The research firm said Trillian appeared for the first time in February 2002 in the Media Metrix Internet audience ratings with 344,000 unique users and has grown 77 percent to 610,000 as of April 2002,” added Ryan Naraine.

Trillion may be found at: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/                                        

Happy messaging.                                                                                                           

Timothy J. Kilkenny                                                                                                      

Founder and CEO

Did you know about our FullSpeed ISDN Circuits?

128K – Anywhere in Oklahoma!

An ISDN Circuit includes the 128K Dedicated (Always On) Internet Access along with the Southwestern Bell 128K ISDN line. You can network a family of computers together with Internet access.  It also comes with an additional telephone line that you can even use for local calls to Tulsa or OKC! 

Additional Features:

Wayne Gray

VP of Sales

sales@fullnet.net

Be Kind To Your Email Friends (Part III)

Last month we discussed the importance of "Protecting the Privacy of Your Email Address" by using the BCC in sending email.  This month we're going to discuss the problems of junk email that is not SPAM.  (Next month we'll talk about SPAM).

Problem 3:  Junk Email (not SPAM)

There is a fine line between what is "junk" email and what is SPAM email.  Examples of Junk Email are hoaxes (such as forwarding fake virus threats, "Please help little Suzy", etc.), and chain letters.  SPAM mail is any unsolicited message of commercial intent.**  It is safe to say that a vast majority of the Internet community is fed up with both variants of trash, including ISPs (Internet Service Providers).  Trash email creates huge amounts of network traffic that could be put to much better use, and often creates slow-downs in service.  Most competitive ISPs have powerful email servers and sufficient bandwidth to support this to some extent, but the equipment is expensive to maintain and bandwidth costs even more.

Solution:  Don't Spread It!

This is a win-win situation for everyone, folks.  Your ISP is happy that you don't clutter the network, and your friends are saved from having to first download then delete another nuisance from their mailbox already in the hundreds.  Here are some helpful links in sniffing out those virus hoaxes, email fraud, and other junk messages:

· "Don't Spread That Hoax!"  http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/

· "Hoaxbusters" http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/

** "Unsolicited" is the operative word here as many SPAM companies claim that their message was sent with your permission.  Moral:  Be careful what you click "I Agree" for, you just might get it.

Stay tuned next month when we'll talk about real SPAM.

Randen Swartz

Customer Service

support@fullnet.net