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Watch for It | Two Millkern Notices to CPCUG Customers | Other Developments [Jan. 25, 2006] Millkern has made some of the old files from its cpcug.org e-mail server available again. Barbara Conn and other CPCUG.ORG subscribers report they have recovered some of their missing personal e-mail and shell files, all dated prior to August 2004, however. CPCUG is trying to determine if emails or personal files that might have been stored or arrived in 2005 might be restored too. If you do not use a shell account and do not have personal web pages on cpcug.org the next two paragraphs probably do not apply to you. If you are not a shell account user and want to recover old files stored at Millkern or are unable to recover your files as described below, please contact Mohnkern@Millkern.com before February. If you're a shell account user, to get to your files, go to the shell prompt and insert the change directory command
substituting your personal user id for "<your user id>" in the command above. Millkern has created another subdirectory where it has posted older files from the CPCUG.org Web site, all dated in the year 2004 or earlier. If you placed personal Web pages on CPCUG.ORG, you may be able to download some of your files via FTP from
Please check both these directories now for missing files you might want. Don't wait until the very end of January! Backup, Backup, Backup: Be sure to backup before restoring an entire subdirectory of previously missing files. There may be some restored files that conflict with current files of the same name. You probably don't want the old file to overwrite the current file. However, you may want both files, and so should rename one. Or you may want to merge the two identically named files. Also, if you FTP restored files to your own computer, you'll need to take an extra step to capture the hidden files (those that start with a ".", such as your Pine addressbook, .addressbook). To download even the hidden files: first change the names of the "dot" files; for example, change .addressbook to dot-addressbook. The restoration plan and likely availability of files dated after 2004 is unknown at present. The oldest LISTSERV archives and 2004 address lists may or may not be in the materials awaiting transfer. If you find items missing or garbled please let me know. Apparently a variety of permissions and other settings have not been restored, but at least the oldest of the missing files may be back. You should check yours! Watch For It Dennis and Karen Courtney have finished the gigantic job of preparing snail-mail advisories to all the CPCUG members describing the new accounts CPCUG will give them on February 1, including the default usernames and default passwords. Watch for it and watch this space for developments! (A summary of the new accounts appears below with the January 18 Advisory.) Two Millkern Notices to CPCUG-Customers Millkern sent the following message to many of its @cpcug.org customers, but not all. CPCUG does not endorse or necessarily agree with the statements in these messages, but is posting them for affected members who did not receive them directly. If you have a Millkern-issued @cpcug.org account, you might want to check into this and its followup that is displayed below this first one: Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:11:48 -0500 Dear CPCUG.ORG user, It is our understanding that CPCUG currently has no plans to replace dial up, DSL, or Shell services which would be terminated due to the cancellation of this contract. It is our understanding that they will be providing web hosting and email services only to their members. While the last month was has been [sic] difficult, due to a CPCUG SIG account being attacked, Millkern wishes to continue to provide you the Internet services you paid for. Millkern Communications is prepared to move you to our Millkern.com server whenever you wish, prior to the cancellation of the contract. In addition, Millkern is offering a series of other incentives for you to continue with our service: 1. For any person relocating to the Millkern service, we will provide one free month of service, in recognition of our problems in December and January. 2. Five additional free email boxes, for a year, provided you continue service with Millkern. 3. We will provide free forwarding from your cpcug.org account to your Millkern account from the date you choose to move to the date the CPCUG contract ends. 4. Full restoral [sic] of your web space files, and shell account files if you have them. 5. If you wish, we'll provide three months Web Accelerator service, increasing your internet connection speed up to 5 times, free of charge. 6. Millkern has contracted with Insta-Nerd, an online computer help service that expects to open in Spring 2006. When they open, Insta-Nerd will provide you three free months service with them. 7. Guaranted rates for the next 12 months for your account. If you would like to transfer your account to Millkern.com, please go to www.millkern.com/transfer/index.html and fill out a quick form. We hope you will choose to continue with Millkern as your dial up, shell, or DSL provider. If you choose not to, Millkern will make arrangements for a refund. Sincerely, CPCUG will be monitoring Millkern refunds for undelivered prepaid services to those Members who cancel, if they tell us. So let CPCUG know what you have been told. And a followup, again which did not reach all of Millkern's @cpcug.org customers: Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 10:57:23 -0500 Dear CPCUG.ORG User, As you should have been previously notified, on December 18th 2005, the cpcug.org server was broken into due to an easy to guess password. Over the last month, we've been scanning the files and doing restores to make your files that you had on the server available to you. These files are now available. For those of you who use your Unix Shell, your old files are at /restore/home/<your user id>. You should be able to copy them from there. Please note, if you've created new folders in pine, make sure that you back them up before you restore your files from this directory. If you're not able to restore your files, or cannot locate them, please contact Mohnkern@Millkern.com, who will assist you. Also, please note, unless you request your service to be transferred to millkern.com by January 31st, 2005, your contract with Millkern will end effective February 1, at CPCUG's request. You may request transferring to millkern.com by filling out the form at www.millkern.com/transfer/index.html Sincerely, Scott Mohnkern As noted above, the restoration to date appears to be only files before 2005, if not before August, 2004. The instructions here are also summarized at the top of this advisory. CPCUG members report the personalized account structures and settings have not been restored, and may have to be rebuilt by individual users. Other Developments Those looking for alternative shell accounts might check those offered by Patriot.Net, a local ISP. Patriot is offering a 20% discount to CPCUG members for dialup with email, webmail and shell accounts (resulting in $15.96/month or less) and web hosting packages: just mention you are a CPCUG member and the discount in the comments block if you sign up at www.Patriot.Net. This ISP was on the CPCUG short-list of alternative providers at the end of 2005. ISD Home Page |
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