May 09, 2008

Recent Spam Activity
Some Santel customers recently received emails requesting a confirmation of their Santel email address and password in order to continue their email service with Santel. This email was a scam and was not sent by Santel Communications. In the event you ever receive such messages, please delete them and do not respond. Santel Communications will never ask you to submit username and password information that we already have access to, especially by email. For your protection, never give out account numbers, usernames, passwords, or other confidential information related to your Internet accounts, bank accounts, etc.

New Websites
The following Santel-hosted websites are new or newly redesigned.

• Baysinger Seasonal Market and Lasting Impressions
• Hobby Horse Overnight Stables - www.hobbyhorseovernightstables.com
• Stan's Inc. - www.stansinc.net
• Blarney's Sports Bar & Grill - www.blarneyssportsbar.com

5th Annual 5K Hutchinson County Relay Rally
The 5th Annual 5K Hutchinson County Relay Rally will be held on Saturday, May 31 at the Rose Bormann Park in Parkston.  Registration begins at 8:00 a.m. followed by the 5K Run/Walk at 8:30 a.m. and the 1 mile Run/Walk at 9:30 a.m.  For information or to pre-register call Julie Semmler, Avera St. Benedict Health Center at 605-928-4415 or Delilia Weber at 605-928-7385.  There will also be a survivor recognition social held during the Rally.  Doughnuts, coffee and water will be offered to survivors, friends and families.  Sign up for door prizes.   

Are you receiving invalid bounce messages in your email?
You're not the only one. This message is called an NDR (non-delivery receipt).

Spammers have increased their utilization of "spoofing" or "joe-jobbing" (falsifying the "from" address of an email) in the last few weeks, resulting in some email addresses receiving an increased amount of bounce messages for mail they did not send.

Your Postini filter is currently capturing the majority of these messages when the bouncing server preserves the original spam content, but if the bouncing server has significantly changed the message then Postini may have allowed this message through as they do not stop NDR bounces. These NDR bounces are not stopped because the purpose of the NDR is to notify you if you have a legitimate message that does not reach its intended recipient. 

It is a common practice for spammers to use a specific individual's email address to send spam and in doing so cause an excessive number of bounce back messages to the spoofed sender.

Although invalid bounce messages are a nuisance, and are sometimes a legitimate issue when a large number of them are received at once, they are not technically considered to be spam since the sending MTA (Message Transfer Agent) is legitimately notifying what it believes to be the sender that the message was not delivered.

Sanborn County Courthouse Celebrating 100 Years
The Sanborn County Courthouse is planning a celebration for their 100th Birthday on Thursday, May 22.  An open house will be held from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. with a program at 2:00 p.m.  If anyone in Sanborn County has any memorabilia that you would be willing to share for that day, give the auditor’s office a call at 605-796-4513 or e-mail Diane Larson at sancoaud@santel.net.  Also, if you have any ideas or would be willing to help, please let Diane know.  They are trying to put together a little brochure on the history of the courthouse. 

Old Woonsocket School Annuals For Sale
If you are interested in acquiring any old Woonsocket School Annuals, the following years are available for purchase:  1996 through 2004 several available; 1959 - 1, 1962 - 1, 1963 - 1, 1964 - 1, 1983 - 3, 1984 - 2, 1986 - 2.  If interested, email woonlib@santel.net.  Cost of 2003 or 2004 annuals - $30; 1996 and later - $3; and the rest - $6.

New Santel Webmail and Account Management Center
Santel Communications has upgraded to a new Webmail and Account Management Center. Our enhanced Webmail is user-friendly and works with any computer operating system. For your convenience, a Webmail Tutorial is available to assist you with any questions you may have. We also have added a new Account Management Center (AMC) which allows you to manage your account from your own computer. You can change your password, check your dialup online time, check your website usage, adjust your junk mail filter, and delete large emails. We have added a tutorial for the AMC/Spam Filtering to assist you with these options. If you should encounter any unusual issues after our upgrade, or if you have any questions, please contact our technical support department at techsupport@santel.net or 1-888-796-4411. Thank you.

Increase in Spam
Our customers have seen a dramatic increase in the amount of spam emails in recent days. Many of these emails appear to be Viagra advertisements or are in a foreign language. Upon investigation, we’ve found that this increase has been reported from all of the major anti-spam vendors. Santel and its system administrators are working with our vendors to address this increase in spam.  Each time a new variation of spam is introduced, it takes a period of time for programmers to develop the correct software to stop the messages.

There are steps you can take to minimize the number of these emails that are received into your Inbox: Check to see that all of your Junk Mail Settings are at the most aggressive level and also review the Approved Senders list to be sure that none of the spamming addresses have inadvertently gotten placed on your acceptable list. Until the problem is addressed by the vendors, you will see an increase in the amount of spam in your inbox and quarantine.

FREE Client Tools for all Santel Internet Customers
Santel Internet is happy to announce an added enhancement that is now available with ALL of our internet services. The value-added service called Santel Accelerator has been upgraded and is now called Santel Client Tools. The Client Tools offers far more than just faster speeds for dial-up customers, and it's for both broadband (Wireless and JetNet) and dial-up.

You get 5 significant new features with the Client Tools software suite:

1. New Parental Controls that use a Black List/White List concept and allows you to build a "walled garden" on the internet for your children.
2. Anti-Spyware that discovers, blocks, and deletes all kinds of spyware, adware, and other rogue software that has been maliciously forced upon you.
3. Pop Up Blocker that stops annoying pop-ups and pop-unders in both your browser and in many popular applications such as Kazaa, Morpheus, iMesh, Gator, and others.
4. E-mail Accelerator that works with both Broadband (high speed) and Dial Up.
5. Ad Blocker that you can use to stop the annoying flashing banners and unwanted animations.

The Santel Client Tools are provided FREE OF CHARGE as part of current Santel Internet access packages. Simply click on the Santel Client Tools in the left menu. This will take you to a page with information and a sign-up link. As always, you may contact our internet tech support staff by emailing us at techsupport@santel.net or calling us at 1-888-796-4411.

Santel Internet Announces Website Builder
Have you ever been interested in creating a web page but have always been afraid to try it because you thought it would be too difficult? We have the answer for you: Santel's Website Builder. It is a point and click web page building tool that easily helps you create a professional looking web page in a matter of minutes.

With Website Builder, you will have the ability to create a personal or business site from just a few pages to setting up a shopping cart for your customers. You can choose from 1000's of options for colors, layouts, graphics, and more. You can add pictures and even your logo to your site.

To preview Santel's Website Builder, please visit websitebuilder.santel.net. Try out our FREE Test Drive which allows you to play with many of the website building tools and see just how easy it is.

For personal website pricing, please contact info@santel.net. Pricing for a business website (a site that sells a product or a service) starts at $9.95 per month for a Basic Package. The Basic Package gives you five main pages with a choice of 300 designs. Add a form, a guest book, and use our list of goodies. Step up to the Advanced Package for $15.95 per month and get more fun features to use including up to 40 pages, 700 unique designs, forms, guest books, photo albums, goodie tools and more. With our Online Store Package for $45 per month, you get all features available including 70 total pages, shopping cart with payment gateways, blog zones, product catalogs, form wizards, photo albums, goodie tools and more. Each package also includes an email address and domain name hosting.

When you host a website with Santel, we also announce your new website from our main page at www.santel.net and give you a complimentary listing on our Business Websites page.

You may sign up online for the Website Builder service or email info@santel.net for more information.