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| A publication of Ecunet.org |
Volume
1| Issue 1 | October 2002 |
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Welcome to the first edition of the Ecunet newsletter! At Ecunet, we have gone through many stages of growth over the years, and find ourselves experiencing new growth right now. More than ever, this growth relies on the members of Ecunet to make our unique corner of the online universe as interesting, spiritually rewarding, and financially viable as possible. EcuNews is one way we can enrich our Ecunet community. This is what you'll see in the next few issues: Read these newsletters! They will keep you informed about what's going on with Ecunet - and will improve the quality of your Ecunet experience. Along with this first edition we'll launch a new meeting called
"EcuNews Chat." We welcome your story ideas, commentary
about Ecunet, and other suggestions in that meeting. Your feedback
will help us make this newsletter better able to meet your needs
and deal with the issues you care about.
Ecunet acquires EcuServe Effective immediately, Ecunet, through its partner, Advent Community Systems, LLC, has assumed the management, operations, and ownership of EcuServe. For the past several years EcuServe has provided Ecunet member networks with Internet access, phone and long distance services. The staff of Advent, the same company that manages the day-to-day operations of Ecunet, will manage EcuServe. This week EcuServe will begin offering new, low long-distance phone rates. These rates begin as low as 4.4 cents a minute. With the acquisition of EcuServe by Ecunet, all revenue from the company will be used to keep the annual service charges for Ecunet membership affordable for everyone. EcuServe was formerly owned and operated by Joe Lyons, who will remain as a consultant to EcuServe. "EcuServe is poised for incredible growth over the next few years," says Lyons. "It was best for EcuServe's growth to be managed by the same management as Ecunet. There's no better way for both entities to significantly grow and benefit." Advent is based in Houston, Texas and is majority owned by Ecunet, Inc. It was created as a commercial extension of the ministry and mission of Ecunet. "We are very excited about the acquisition of EcuServe," says Brian Lang, Advent's President. "Over the next few years, EcuServe will remain very focused on meeting the communications needs of local church members with Internet, phone and long distance services."
New Ecunet host hardware fundraising campaign For many years the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has faithfully provided Ecunet with free use of computer hardware and on-site hosting for all of the member networks served by Ecunet. Recent budget constraints have caused many changes at the Presbyterian Center in Louisville, Kentucky, including the need for Ecunet to take over management and administration of the Ecunet host computers. As this move, including the possible purchase of new servers, was not part of our budget plan for this year, Ecunet is requesting that members consider making a charitable contribution to help defray these costs. New hardware will need to be purchased no later than the end of this year and will be hosted at the Level(3) facility in Houston, Texas. Level(3) is a world class hosting facility with redundant Internet bandwidth and on-site power source. Costs associated with this move could easily exceed $25,000. Contributions can be made online at Network for Good (link below)
or by mailing a check payable to Ecunet, Inc., P.O. Box 308, Cypress,
TX 77410. Ecunet is a 501(c)3 organization and all contributions
are tax deductible.
Using Ecunet as your primary email address While some members have email addresses other than their Ecunet address, many use us as their primary email account. In the past, we required that members first retrieve email messages from Ecunet's mail server before they were allowed to send email. This process allowed us to verify a member's account before sending, and kept Ecunet from being used by "spammers" to send unsolicited commercial email. We've made this process easier! Members may now choose a new authentication method that uses your Ecunet member name and password to send email. This process is called "authenticated SMTP (Send Mail Transfer Protocol)." Once your email software (such as Outlook Express) is set up to use authenticated SMTP, members no longer have to first retrieve email before they can send email.
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