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CamasNet, Inc.
Frequently Asked Questions
- I can't maintain a connection for very long. Is there something
wrong with CamasNet's modems or routers?
No. We have exhaustively tested this system. We here at CamasNet often
maintain a solid connection for days at a time using the same dial up
that our customers use. The most frequent causes of poor connections
that we have been able to document to date are:
- poor phone line quality in your area
- an incorrect setting on your computer software.
However, no one can maintain a PPP connection indefinitely.
CamasNet cannot be held responsible for poor phone connections to your
home or office, glitches in the power in your area, or for lightning
stikes which cause various interruptions. When you dial into one of
our sites, there can be as many as 30 different connections your
signal will travel through between your computer and our equipment. If
you live out in a rural area where the phone service is mostly
neglected then you can expect an occasional disconnect due to noise or
corrosion on the connections. Connections can be lost on any system
for various reasons. Even with high quality phone service. When this
happens, just reconnect!
- Some one has told me that my phone line may be bad. How can I
tell about this and how can I improve the quality of my local phone
lines?
One easy way to tell if your phone line is bad is to listen for noise
on the line when you are talking to someone over the phone. If you
have any noise call your local phone company. They are supposed to
deliver a certain minimum level of service. Demand nothing less than
noise-free 28.8k. We have encountered lines in this region that
support only 2400 baud. Also, if the line that is feeding your
computer was installed more than 10 years ago you might want to run a
new line from your outside phone box (where US West connects to your
house) to where your computer plugs into it. Any corosion on the line
connections is a potential for problems. The faster the modem you use,
the more sensitive it is to noise. Also if you notice that you have
more trouble when it is raining, make sure you report that to your
phone Company.
- I heard that Win98 has problems with certain modems. Is there
anything to that rumor?
If you are running a USR modem with the X2 technology and have
recently upgraded to Win98 you could be having moderate to severe
problems with your connections due to incompatibility bugs in the
Win98 software. At this time there does not seem to be a patch for
that problem. If you are running a new V.90 USR modem you should not
see that problem. If you are running a USR Modem of the X2 variety and
were wondering about upgrading to Win98 you might want to hold off
until a patch is available.
- Some of my friends tell me that they reply to my email but they
get a delivery error of "Local configuration error". What's going on?
Your settings are incorrect on your POP email program on your home or
office computer. Make sure that your mail host is listed as
camasnet.com (check your spelling) and your return address is
correctly entered. Always put your e-mail address in for your return
address. If you try to put your real name or nick name in for your
return address any replies will get lost in the system instead of
coming to you.
- My friends tell me they send me e-mail but I never seem to get
it. Is CamasNET having problems with it's mail server?
A common problem with lost e-mail from friends is that they mispelled
our domain name. Quite often people will send an e-mail with an
improper return address and the server simply will not send it because
it does not recognize the sender as a valid user of the system.
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- Can a hacker get into my home computer and do any damage?
We continue to take strikes from time to time from potential hackers,
but we are doing all we can to ensure that CamasNet is secure. The
best way YOU can help us keep this sytem secure is to not
give out your userid and password to anyone. There are some bugs
now being exploited in certain newer versions of software on the
market. It is a pretty good idea to not store personal
information on your hard drive for this reason. Keep personal
information on floppy disc or on something like a Zip disc.
- I am having terrible problems staying connected to internet
connections that require non-interupted steady streaming of
information, and I have been monitoring my CamasNET connection and
have found that every few minutes it just stops and I get disconnected
from the net link (not from CamasNET) just to the system I am
connected to. CamasNET just seems to stall just long enough to break
the stream of info I am getting to disconnect me from the server I am
talking to.
When you are downloading a file or web pages from the internet your
down load speed depends on a couple of things; Your connect speed (on
your connection to us, but this is the smallest issue in the bunch),
the available bandwidth on the path your are using to get to your
file, and how busy the server is that you are downloading from. If you
are downloading from a server that is overly busy and it is connected
to a 56K circuit to feed into the Internet, you can expect to find
multiple delays in your download due to packets of information getting
lost enroute to your computer. In a situation like I just described
even if you have a 56K modem and connected to one of our 56K modem you
may not reach more than a couple of hunderd bytes per second on your
download, and CamasNet would not have anything to do with the dismal
speed!
- How come when I log on to get my mail I get disconnected before
I can reply to my messages when I have only been on for about 20
minutes?
We have set up our our equipment to monitor the traffic through our
modems. If your connection has been idle for 20 minutes (while you
were composing your reply message perhaps) with no traffic passing
through it our equipment will drop your connection to give someone
else a chance to use the system. For more information on that issue
please see our
policy pages .
- I have heard that there are computer viruses that can be
transmitted through e-mail. How do I protect myself against them?
While there are viruses that can be transmitted through e-mail, there
is one very important thing to remember: Any virus has to come as
an attachment and cannot be activated by merely reading your e-mail!
If you find an email in your inbox from someone you don't know and it
has an attachment, just delete it before you read it. If you open the
attachment, you turn the virus loose to do it's job on your system.
CamasNet is in no way responsible for any viruses you pick up from
using the Internet. For up to date information on all the
known e-mail viruses take a look at
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html or
http://www.kumite.com/myths/
Visit this page often. It will be updated as new problems arise and
solutions found. Have a new problem? Send e-mail to our helpdesk at
helpdesk@camasnet.com. If
there are any bad links we want to know about them!
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