newsletter://mv.com June 2003 Webmail update and feedback We spent a lot of time designing, developing, and testing the Webmail interface, trying to make it as intuitive to use as possible yet still pro- viding the needed functionality. When we announced both the Webmail and DNS blocking facilities in last month's newsletter, we were ready to try to help people use it and field problems. If there was a major bug, we were ready to suspend the utility until it was fixed. Incoming email from the feedback area was being monitored constantly so any problems could be addressed almost immediately. This may sound strange, but one of the problems with being a service provider is that you often only hear from your customers when the customer has a problem of some kind. MV has been providing our own in-house support since we began in 1991, and we encourage you to contact us if there is an issue to be solved. Unfortunately, this means that our customer service representatives receive calls and emails that are mostly about problems. So, to all our customers, let us say THANK YOU! We had an overwhelm- ingly positive response. We received notes from customers explaining how they were using the new utility. We received updates on how much spam had already been caught. We received not complaints, but requests for new fea- tures. In that light, we've taken as many of the suggestions as we could and added them to Release 2, which should be available by the time you receive this newsletter. We've added color coding of messages for what is new, deleted and unread. We've made the size of the index selectable in your profile and added a way of selecting multiple messages on the index. New help and FAQ files have been created and this release allows shell users to take advantage of the spam processing. More changes will be coming over the next few months. Please be sure to read the release notes on the opening MV WebMail splash page. On behalf of MikeU, MikeD, Erik, Sue, and Dave in the customer service department, "Thank you for the very positive feedback." Spam stuff We've also gotten positive feedback about the initial spam filtering facilities we have put into place. As we've said, though, this is just the beginning. Our approach is to provide this initial function (which uses a small part of the mail handling facility we're building) and continue open- ing up new features as they become available. It helps that the DNSBL fea- ture that we chose for the initial function exercises many of the other components of the tool as well. We chose for the initial function one that we expected to make a rea- sonable dent in the amount of spam you receive, but the results have been even better than predicted. The webmail service has also been well received and continues to be enhanced. (If you missed reading about both of these, please go to http://webmail.mv.net/ and check out the new facili- ties for accessing your mailbox via the web and for setting up some basic spam filtering.) There are a couple of things that we would like you to be aware of when you use the DNSBL spam filtering tool -- this will also apply to other kinds of mail filtering that become available. One of the things that you can choose to do with potential spam is to file it into a folder called "Caught Spam" that you can access via IMAP or via the webmail tool. Be sure that you don't let this folder grow without end -- it's possible to get a lot of spam stored into this folder, and that can cause your mailbox account to go over its storage quota. We will be treating the "Caught Spam" folder specially, and pruning messages from that folder on a periodic basis. This pruning will be done to limit the folder to a maximum number of messages and maximum storage amount in that folder. So be aware that any messages filed into this folder are not guaranteed to stay around permanently. Our Anniversary MV Communications was incorporated as an ISP on June 21, 1991. We're celebrating our 12th anniversary this month. Thanks to everyone! Convert to MV DSL If you have Verizon DSL service in NH that is not provided by MV (e.g., provided by Verizon Online or by another ISP), did you know that in many cases you can switch your service to MV? Perhaps (as in some cases we know of) you wanted to use MV's DSL service but were lured to another ser- vice by modem giveaways or other promotional attractions, and now you'd prefer to use MV as your ISP. It's easy to switch back to MV, and through- out the summer we're making it even easier! As long as your current ser- vice is a Verizon DSL service, we can help you with the provider switch. And if you switch by August 31, we'll waive the normal $60 conversion fee charged to us, and give you $20 in non-refundable credit to be used against future charges. See our special page for details (go to www.mv.com and click on the specials link). Dispute settled On an end note, we'd like to give you an update about how the situa- tion with our old (now discontinued) dialup numbers worked out. As a reminder of the situation, here's a brief paraphrase of the report from our March newsletter: One day in the last week of February, we were given about 24 hours notice that some of our dialup service was being turned off over a billing issue with one of our suppliers. Indeed this issue was not a new one: we had been working to resolve it for perhaps 18 months, and in fact were told that we had an agreement in place as long ago as last August. ... Without going into great detail, we feel that our long-term and honest efforts to come to terms with this issue were abruptly and summarily discarded. The agreement we had in place would have benefited both parties. With the action taken, no such benefit can be had: the ven- dor decided that burning bridges was better than building them. We still have this issue to work out, and we expect that it will take considerable time and resources to do so. For our part, we will be dedicated to resolve in in a way that is fair to both parties. The situation has indeed been worked out amicably. That doesn't mean we are switching back, though -- for one thing, we feel that would be far too disruptive. We're also very pleased with the way the new vendor came through with the new service, not to mention with the new coverage we gained in the process. MV Communications, Inc. PO Box 4963, Manchester, NH 03108 (603) 629-0000 .