ON-LINE OLYMPUSNET NEWSLETTER August, 2000

• New Billing System
• Virtual Private Networks
• OlympusNet DSL Timetable
• Removing Filters for Microsoft Outlook
• New Search Engine for our Virtual Domain Customers
• OlympusNet fiber due October 5th
• North Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Washington Software Alliance
• OlympusNet Terms and Conditions

In our July Newsletter we wrote about Internet ideas helpful for you to know - ideas with noxious TLAs - three letter acronyms. Don't despair, the OlympusNet you know will continue to offer the services you're used to as well as the new ones with the acronyms. OlympusNet Newsletters are archived at www.olympus.net/newsletters

New Billing System
In our December 1999 Newsletter we announced that we were switching to a new billing system. That switch just took place. Our goal is to use our new billing system to automatically carry out your requests to add, remove and change services without our having to manually change our servers and communication equipment. You'll be able to make the changes via the web or by phoning us. More immediately, you'll see small changes in our email invoices. If you pay by check, please write on your check your user-name or the ZŠ customer number that appears on the email or paper invoice. That way we can be sure to credit the right person. (We no longer use invoice numbers to identify payments.) You'll receive an email acknowledgement when we enter your check or credit card in our new billing system.

Virtual Private Networks
In our July Newsletter we talked about Over-Subscription, QoS (Quality of Service) and SLA (Service Level Agreements). Here we introduce Virtual Private Networks. VPNs are used primarily by the health care, legal and financial communities to share private files. VPNs can be set up for permanent or temporary use via dial-up, DSL, wireless or cable between trusted partners in remote offices. VPNs are private because they encrypt your Internet connection. For more information, see www.cisco.com/warp/public/779/largeent/learn/technologies/VPNs.html
Customers who are looking ahead to connecting their offices to the Internet might consider using Cisco communications equipment. Cisco makes excellent equipment and has good support and we have confidence in recommending their equipment to our customers.

OlympusNet DSL Timetable
We plan on offering OlympusNet DSL to the Sequim, Port Angeles and Port Townsend areas in January. That service is dependent upon our carrier's installation schedule. We will start testing another long-reach high-speed DSL system in November in Port Townsend. This is cutting edge technology that is worth waiting for. We will let you know as soon as possible when it is ready for customer use.

Removing Filters for Microsoft Outlook
Last month we installed a filter to block a most pernicious virus that affected Microsoft's Windows Outlook and Outlook Express. (See 'Mail Vulnerability' in our July 2000 Newsletter www.olympus.net/newsletters). A fix has been published which you may find at www.olympus.net/mailVulnerability. We will be disabling our Outlook filter on 30 September and urge you to update your Windows Outlook and Outlook Express mail programs before then.

New Search Engine for our Virtual Domain Customers
We will install an improved search engine for our Virtual Domain customers' web sites during the first week of October.

OlympusNet fiber due October 5th
This is a reminder that we will start cutting over to our new fiber shortly after October 5th. The purpose of the fiber is to increase the size of our connection to the Qwest Central Office. It replaces our electrical high speed circuits with fiber optic circuits and allows us to buy faster connections than we could have before. For notice of short service disruptions that occur very early in the morning, please subscribe to the olympus-announce mailing list at www.olympus.net/mailinglist/mailinglists.html. Notice of planned interruptions during normal usage times will be sent to everyone in short News flashes.

North Olympic Peninsula Chapter of the Washington Software Alliance (WSA)
Our software company, Townsend Software, Inc and the STMA (www.STMAWorks.org), is helping to set up a chapter of the Washington Software Alliance (www.wsa1.org) on the North Olympic Peninsula. One part of the chapter will be in Port Townsend, the other part of the same chapter will be in Port Angeles. The purpose of the WSA is to encourage Washington state software and Internet innovators. WSA is one of the two best regarded organizations of its kind in the world. We hope to make our chapter the focal point of software development on the North Olympic Peninsula. Please come to the initial organizing meeting to be held in Port Townsend on September 14th from 6-8pm at 103 Hudson Street, located beside the Shanghai Restaurant at Point Hudson. The launch of the North Olympic Chapter will be on October 19th at 6pm at the Dungeness Golf and Country Club in Sequim. For those interested in seeing a software industry flourish on the North Olympic Peninsula, please support our WSA Chapter. Please let us know about you by signing up at www.olympus.net/olympusnet/forms/NOP-WSA/signup.html

OlympusNet Terms and Conditions
Use of OlympusNet implies that you agree to our Terms and Conditions which may be found at www.olympus.net/terms. We periodically update the Terms and Conditions and encourage you to review them.

Regards to all
Ned and Kate Schumann and the staff of OlympusNet
xxx@olympus.net