CUSTOMER NEWS

We at Simply Connect continue to remain very busy making constant improvements to our network and our overall business.  This page is our way to help make you, our VALUED CUSTOMERS, more aware of what is going on behind the scenes and keeping you informed of our progress. If you ever have any questions, as always please email us at sales@simcon.net OR call our office at:
(440) 285-5433
(440) 632-6320
1-888-338-4564

12/27/05 10:18AM - HOLIDAY OFFICE HOURS

We will be closed the 24th-26th, and 31st-2nd. We will be back in the office on Tuesday the 3rd Have a Great Holiday and New Year!

12/27/05 10:20AM -  New Service

Coming Soon.

Broadband Phone Service!

Check out www.simplyvoice.net for Details.

If you have any Anti-Virus software on your machine you have apparently been getting warnings about the Sober Virus. This is an email virus that has been propagating the Internet.

Our Anti-Virus software started blocking the Virus by 7:00 P.M. the day the Virus was detected, keeping our customers safe. 

Forth of July Holiday Hours

Our office will be closed Monday July 5th. for the holiday.

Customers dialing into our Chardon number with an old style password my not connect reliably during busy times...

If your username is "username" not "username@simcon.net" this is an older style password. We have added capacity to the Chardon dial-up pool. The newly added service will not accept the old style password. The symptom of this would be that you could connect fine on off hours but told you have an incorrect username or password during peak hours (4:00P.M. to 9:00P.M)

If you have an old style password, please call technical support so we can add the @simcon.net portion to your username. Nothing else with your service will change.

THIS IS A VIRUS NOTICE!!

Worm Virus Sasser.b Gets Red Alert from Trend Micro.

Be sure all critical patches are applied to your computer.

To do that...

(Start Internet Explorer, click on tools then Windows Update)

Simcon Launches upgraded version of Simcon Dial-Up Accelerator.

This new version speeds up flash animation and blocks flash pop up adds.

Simcon Technologies Launches new web site 

3/18/04 4:21PM - Sales Update  

Simply Connect is proud to bring a new product to our dial up customers.

Simcon Dial-up Accelerator (SDA)

SDA can be added to any plan for just $3.95 per month.

Click below and try it FREE for 14 days.

If you decide to keep it after the trial period.

Give us a call.

We can add it to your plan

or

go online to our customer support section and add it to your plan.

Simcon Dial-up Accelerator Is Here!!

Simcon Dial-up Accelerator (SDA) is an exciting program that accelerates your ability to view pages on the internet faster than ever!

• Use your existing phone jack and modem 
• No additional equipment needed
• Dial-up Web-surfing with NO waiting

• Pop Up Blocker to remove pop up adds

THIS IS A VIRUS NOTICE!!

This new BAGLE variant is very similar to PE_BAGLE.N but bigger in actual size. It propagates via email with varying subjects, message bodies, and attachment file names. This virus searches for files with certain extension names, from which it gathers target recipients. Using its own SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) engine, it sends out email messages with spoofed return addresses and itself as attachment. A sample of the email message it sends out is shown below:

DO NOT OPEN ATTACHMENT.

Delete the email message and you should be fine.

THIS IS A VIRUS NOTICE!!

If you see a message like the one below delete it. Do not Open the Attachment! It is not from us.

This virus is changing so fast it makes it through the anti virus for a while before it is caught.

Hello user of Velocity1.net e-mail server,

We just finished updating our mail server software to the latest version.

We are seeing tremendous results with the amount of additional Spam that is being caught. This new version also has additional features.

In the web interface under the settings tab, you will see two new buttons.

One is Blacklist.

One is Whitelist.

The blacklist is for email addresses or domains that you NEVER want to see email from again. The whitelist is for email addresses or domains that have been erroneously quarantined.  Entering an email address or domain there, will allow future emails to pass through to your in box. 

We continue to strive to bring you the best possible service....

If you get a chance, let us know how its working for you. email us at: sales@simcon.net 

3/1/04 5:51PM - Sales Update

A new month and lots of news….

Where do I start……. 

First off, be on the lookout for a new web page coming soon!

On 10/17/03 we brought up our new email system to be able to provide our customers with Anti Virus, Anti Spam, a new webmail interface, mail forwarding and a host of other features. ALL AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE. 

Well, we are doing it again! 

Now we are providing dial up access for the entire continental United States. AT NO ADDITIONAL CHARGE. Click here to look up all the new numbers. 

Now you can recommend us to your Mom in Michigan, your Kids in Kansas, your Grandparents in Georgia and get a $ 10.00 credit for everyone that signs up with us

Beginning March 15^th we will also be providing (as advertised on national TV) our own Simcon Dial-Up Acceleration Product (SDA). Sorry this one's not free, but only $3.95 per month.  SDA will allow you to surf the web up to 5X faster on your standard dial up connection. It will also provide you with a Popup Blocker.

That’s all for now.

Keep checking here for all the latest news!!

Simcon Technologies acquires a Painesville Internet service provider. 

Velocity 1 Internet is a national Internet service provider located in Painesville Ohio, serving customers throughout the US with dial up Internet services and web hosting. The company was originally started in Ashtabula Ohio, where the majority of the current customer base is still located. 

Simply Connect is happy to welcome the new customers to our network. The acquisition  of Velocity 1 will now allow us to provide dial up Internet service to the entire country.

More to come later..........

For those of you who have been reading about the MyDoom Virus taking down servers and infecting computers all over the country. Have no fear... as a Simply Connect customer, you are safe. We are catching the Virus before it can reach your computer. You may be seeing email come into your mail box like the one below. This is just a notification that we stopped that Virus ridden email from reaching you. You need to do nothing. It will automatically be be deleted for you. If you have any questions please contact sales or tech support.

12/5/02 8:30AM - Sales update

We will be having limited office hours during the upcoming Christmas Season.

Wednesday, Dec. 24 - 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Thursday, Dec. 25 (Christmas Day) - CLOSED

Friday, Dec. 26 - 10:00AM - 2:00PM

Saturday, Dec. 27 - 10:00AM - 2:00PM

Wednesday, Dec. 31 - 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Thursday, Jan. 1 (New Years Day) - CLOSED

Friday, Jan. 2 - 10:00AM - 2:00PM

Saturday, Jan 3 - 10:00AM - 2:00PM

We wish you and your family an enjoyable and safe Christmas Season.

10/17/03 12:51AM - Sales Update

Simply Connect is proud to introduce an added benefit for our customers at no additional charge. 

We have just implemented a new email server package that protects our customers from email viruses and Spam email with an interface that each  customer can adjust to their own levels of tolerance. 

There are also some additional features:

• Vacation auto responder
• One interface to access different email services
• Download personal address books into the web mail client
• Spell check
• Customer settable attachment blocking
• Custom multi level Anti Virus rule creation 
• Customer settable automatic mail forwarding

To use these features see the panel below.

Simply Connect...... continually striving to provide higher levels of service for our customers. Tell your friends and neighbors!!

Please note.... This email Antivirus service is not considered a replacement for an up to date Antivirus program on your computer. Email is only one of many ways your computer can be infected with a virus. 

The transition to the new mail server is completed.

Web mail users will notice a link to the NEW web mail service. This link will take you to the new web mail service which now is also the interface to set your personal tolerance level for Spam, Antivirus and attachment protection. 

Outlook and Outlook Express users will log onto the same interface to set their preferences even if they do not use web mail. Setting made in the web client are used when passing mail to those email programs.   

The web mail link is on our home page www.simcon.net

If you feel there is email left on the old server and you are using Outlook or Outlook Express.....

Change your incoming mail server from mail.simcon.net 

to 

pop3.simcon.net 

Hit send and recieve. Your old mail should download. Then change the incoming mail server back to mail.simcon.net

We are again happy to report that the testing of the Anti Spam / Anti Virus software on our mail server appears to be a great success.

We will be switching mail accounts over to the new mail server at 10:00 PM  next Tuesday evening October 1st. 

This transition will be transparent to our Outlook and Outlook Express users. For best results, it is recommended that you download your email as close to 10:00 as possible.

Web Mail users may find some of their old saved mail no longer there. We can provide you with instructions for retrieving that email by giving us a call.

Stay tuned for additional details.....

>>>

We are happy to report that we are currently testing Anti Spam / Anti Virus software on our mail server this weekend September 12 / 13 / 14 th. on all simcon.net mail boxes.

If all goes well.....  we will be able to provide an interface that allows our customers to manage the level of Anti Spam, Anti Virus and attachment protection that they desire.

Stay tuned for details.....

Serious Virus Worm (be sure to REFRESH this page for any updates)

There have been rumors that the virus Sobig may be triggered again this week. Also be aware that with the upcoming anniversary of 9/11 World Trade Center (WTC) tragedy that there may be virus OR email hoax activity. As always use your best judgment in dealing with email AND PLEASE REMEMBER TO NEVER OPEN A FILE ATTACHMENT from someone you do not know or when you are unsure who the sender is. If you delete it and it was important, the originator can resend it again once you have verified who it is. 

PLEASE KEEP YOUR WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM AND VIRUS SOFTWARE UPDATED!!

Once again we will be at our booth at the Great Geauga County Fair this weekend. We will be in Merchant Hall "A" beside the Main Grandstand. Be sure to stop by and say hello. Our resources have been spread very thin these past few weeks with viruses and the blackout and we still need to continue close monitoring of our systems. One of us (Frank, Dan, Bryan or Glenn) will be manning the booth from 2:00PM until closing each day. We wish you and your family a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend. 

The virus activity seems to be slowing down across the Internet as infected computers become updated. We have been on a constant vigil keeping up with attacks and assisting customers. Obviously there are constant threats of "copycat" viruses being spread again. PLEASE KEEP YOUR WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM AND VIRUS SOFTWARE UPDATED!! We will continue to monitor this situation very closely. 

The virus "copycat" worms seem to be spreading again. There are a few new versions of the Blaster worm  circulating. PLEASE KEEP YOUR VIRUS SOFTWARE UPDATED!!

Also circulating today are a flood of spam email with file attachments. This virus is called "SoBig". The body of the email contains the phrase "Please see the attached file for details". The virus attacker sending these emails may be using email addresses you recognize. Do NOT even trust these. Spammers and virus attackers use hidden and stolen email addresses frequently to deceive. These attachments contain a virus. PLEASE REMEMBER TO NEVER OPEN A FILE ATTACHMENT from someone you do not know or when you are unsure who the sender is. If you delete it and it was important, the originator can resend it again once you have verified who it is. 

We are posting this suggested manual method of removing the virus (W32.Blaster.Worm  or  W32/Lovsan.worm) from your computer. It is recommended that ONLY users who have a good understanding of managing Windows file directories should attempt using this method. 

To fix the problem on a computer running Windows XP, experts at Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems Inc. say:

• Stop the reboot loop by pressing the Ctrl, Alt and Delete keys simultaneously. Then search for a file in the pop-up "applications" list that will appear called "msblast.exe." Click on the "msblast.exe" file name and then click on "End Task" to stop the worm from running.

• Use the computer's search program to find the culprit file -- msblast.exe -- on the hard drive. To do that, click the "Start" button on the lower left corner of your screen, then "Search." That will bring up a search box.

• Choose the option to search all files and folders. Once the search prompt opens, enter the search term "msblast.exe." Delete any matching files, then empty your recycle bin.

• Turn on the firewall software included in Microsoft XP. From the Start menu, click on the "Connect To" menu, then select "Show all connections." Select the first icon you see there, right-click it and select "Properties." Click the "Advanced" tab, the last one on the right, and check the box next to "Internet Connection Firewall." Repeat this step for each icon in that connections window.

• Download the Microsoft software fix to protect your computer against the Blaster worm from the Web site:

Microsoft Download Center.

• Unplug your Internet connection. Restart your computer. Once the computer is fully rebooted, reconnect it to the Internet.

• If you have not been keeping up to date with patches from Microsoft, go back to Windows Update and let Microsoft scan your computer for other  critical updates. Download and install all of those listed.

• Make sure anti-virus software is installed, and update virus definitions.

Remember that we have free diskettes for our customers containing the patch that can fix this virus at our office.

Power is restored to Chardon area and all our systems were taken off backup generator systems successfully. Middlefield power has been restored and service put back online. 

It certainly has been quite a week. Our data center has been effected by the major power outage. We are running on backup generator power since 4:00 this afternoon.  All the systems in the Chardon area are operational. The remote in Middlefield is currently out of service. We expect to provide service to the Middlefield area as soon as power is restored to that area.

The intended purpose of this virus (W32.Blaster.Worm  or  W32/Lovsan.worm) and it's variants is to attack the Microsoft auto update site this coming Saturday (8/16). It is intended to spread a denial -of-service attack against this website to force it out of service and unusable by Microsoft customers. Microsoft is offering an alternative site for you to use for downloading patches. Feel free to use this site as an alternative to the auto update site to retrieve patches and updates. It is located at:

Microsoft Download Center

We have been handing out many free diskettes to our customers containing the patch that can fix this virus. We also have and will continue to monitor our network activity very closely for any unusual events until this crisis subsides. We are working diligently to help protect our network and our customers.

We have been made aware that there may be some variants of the virus (W32.Blaster.Worm  or  W32/Lovsan.worm) being spread now. This is not uncommon as "copycats" try to invade the Internet with viruses. PLEASE KEEP UP WITH ANY MICROSOFT OR VIRUS UPDATES as they become available.

Trend Micro is offering a CLEAN TOOL to remove this virus. BE SURE TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!! This removal tool is located:

http://www.trendmicro.com/download/tsc.asp

Symantec Security Response has developed a removal tool to clean the W32.Blaster.Worm infections. BE SURE TO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!! This removal tool is located:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.blaster.worm.removal.tool.html

We now understand that the virus does NOT affect Windows 95, 98 or ME.

There is a serious virus worm circulating throughout the Internet due to a security flaw in some Microsoft operating systems. This worm virus will deny Internet connections AND deny the ability to make updates to Windows. This virus will put a popup screen on your computer telling you ".....RPC..........your server will disconnect you in x minutes". Then it will not allow you to go to Microsoft site to download the security patch.

We are monitoring this attack very closely. Links have been placed below for our customers to read further details. We are getting constant updated information from Microsoft AND the virus software companies. Based so far on this large volume of information we are "suggesting" you consider doing the following if you think this virus may be on your computer:

DO NOT REBOOT YOUR COMPUTER!!! (This will only cause the worm to be placed on the boot sector of your hard drive consequently your computer will now have the virus each time it is started.)

If you have updated virus software, please scan your hard drive to detect this virus (W32.Blaster.Worm  or  W32/Lovsan.worm).

If you do NOT have virus software you can go the the Trend Micro PC-Cillan website and do a FREE virus scan to determine if the virus is on your computer. The link is:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

If your computer is free of the virus, then do a Windows update to get the most recent security patches updated on your computer.

If you cannot virus scan OR keep an Internet connection, please come to our office to pick up a diskette we have made of the Microsoft update patch for this virus for Windows XP and Windows 2000.

We will keep the office open until 10:00 tonight to provide customer support and diskettes should our customers need one.

To read further information about this virus:

Norton Antivirus - http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/

McAfee - http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp

Pc-cillan - http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/

Thank you, 

Simply Connect Staff                    x

1/13/03 10:00AM - Sales Update.....  Here We Grow Again! 

During the month of January we will be updating the capacity of our network from one fiber line to two fiber lines. ( technically, we are going from a DS3 to an OC3 Capable of handling three DS3's) This upgrade will allow us to provide one DS3 for incoming traffic and one DS3 exclusively for bandwidth. We will now be able to add additional capacity without any network interruption.