New Server

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On Friday, 8/13/99, Show-Me Net installed a new Dell PowerEdge 1300 server.  This machine is Show-Me Net's e-mail and web server.

Why did we upgrade? Show-Me Net was running on the initial computer that we purchased more than 3.5 years ago. It had a 100 MHz Pentium processor with a 2 gigabyte hard drive and 32 megabytes of RAM. It has been a very reliable machine and has served us very well, but it was time to upgrade. The new computer is a Dell PowerEdge 1300 with a 400 MHz Pentium II processor with a 9 gigabyte hard drive and 128 megabytes of RAM. (The total cost is about the same as the previous computer.) This new machine is running Red Hat Linux version 6.0 with an upgraded Linux kernel and newer versions of the application software.

New filters to reduce e-mail "spam" (unsolicited commercial e-mail) We have imposed stronger e-mail filtering rules aimed at reducing "spam" to our members.  Previously we had refused to relay third party e-mail but we would accept any and all e-mail to our members. We have received more complaints from our members about the junk e-mail they are receiving. We have also noted that its volume has increased. We will reject any e-mail to our members that does not have a valid domain name on the "From" line. We will also check a list of known e-mail spammers and will refuse to deliver mail from such sites. We don't think these changes will adversely affect our members unless you are someone who likes to receive mail about "get rich quick" schemes or where to see x-rated images. These new filtering rules will not prevent all unwanted e-mail but we expect it will reduce it. Such filters are becoming more common on other Internet servers and are part of efforts to fight the scourge of spam by reducing its effectiveness.

Expire Mail changes In the past we have allowed members to keep e-mail on our server indefinitely.   All e-mail programs can remove mail from the server after reading it.  But, by design or accident we see that some people have not done so.  As part of the move to the new machine, we will remove all e-mail on our server that is more than 60 days old.   We will continue to "expire old mail" on a regular basis.  If you wish to keep mail longer than 60 days, it will be necessary for you to save a copy on your computer.  In fact, most people regularly do this. Please send questions to webmaster@showme.net for further explanation of these changes.

This page was last modified April 24, 2003

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