• DSL Special Ends April 29^th
  Have you meant to call us about getting DSL Internet service? If so, now is the time to do it.  Through April 29th NATCO Tech offers a free DSL modem and free account activation with a one-year DSL contract. Taking advantage of this offer by April 29th gives you a savings of $221. DSL from NATCO Tech starts at $29.95 per month at the speed of 256 Kb/s downloads and 128 Kb/s uploads. The cost is the same whether you are a residential or a business customer.
  
  Need faster speeds? NATCO Tech has them. Choose 768 Kb/s downloads with 256 Kb/s uploads for $49.95 or 1.5 Mb/s downloads with 512 Kb/s uploads for $79.95. Do call us first about your specific location because DSL service requires that a user be located within a certain distance of telephone switching equipment. Call NATCO toll free, 1-800-775-6682. Customers in Mountain Home may also call NATCO Tech Internet partner Brooks-Jeffrey Marketing, 425-8064.
  
  
• Come Visit Us at the Senior Expo-Health Fair
  It’s spring, so NATCO Tech will be out in the community with its exhibit booth, its Internet knowledge to answer questions, and with free gifts and free services for those who visit us and sign up. April 20-21 will find us at the KTLO / KCTT Senior Expo and Baxter Regional Medical Center Health Fair. If you’re a customer of NATCO Tech already, or thinking of switching to NATCO Tech as your ISP, come see us. We want to meet you.

• $19.95 Dialup Connections
  NATCO Tech continues to offer $19.95 dialup connections for customers who want our most economical Internet access account. Dialup service is available in Marion, Baxter, and Boone counties.
  
  
• How Important Are Backups?
  It is a good practice to back up important files and folders on your computer. To back up files, you can make copies onto media that you can safely store in another place, such as CDs or floppy disks. For more information on home computer security, visit www.cert.org. This is a wide-ranging resource by the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center operated by Carnegie Mellon University.
  
  

• Winning E-Story Submitted by: Mary Payne
  Live in Marion County on north side of Bull Shoals. Have used e-mail several years. Recently, husband had major surgery at Baxter Regional. All friends/relatives wanted daily updates. After 2-hour drive back home each day, could accomplish these updates by simply typing one e-mail and forwarding it to all of them. What a lifesaver for me. After all day at the hospital then the 2-hour drive home, I was exhausted. Thanks to the help from NATCO for giving great service, we got through it.
  
  Mary Payne just earned two free months of NATCO Internet service! Submit your E-Story today and you could be our next winner! Remember that you can enter more than once. So, if you didn’t win this time, try again! Just go to www.natcotech.com/estories.htm and tell us how using NATCO's Internet or e-mail service has made your life easier, helped you promote or manage your business, or simply how much you enjoy using the Internet and e-mail. If your E-Story is chosen, you'll win two months of free NATCO dialup Internet service ($19.95 x 2 = $39.90) or an equivalent credit on your DSL or ISDN account.
  
  

• Win a Gift at South Shore Web Site
  Have you visited the South Shore Web site at www.southshore.com recently? It's the electronic community for the towns on and near the south shore of Bull Shoals Lake and it's packed with information for local residents and tourists. Now you may win a South Shore souvenir - a tee shirt, a cap, chiller cups, and more - by just clicking on the tee shirt at the top right corner of the home page. Sign up, and you may be a winner!
  
  Constance Hardt is this month’s winner of a tee shirt! Congratulations, Constance.

• Helping Your Nonprofit Group
  About 75 area residents who are leaders in clubs and organizations in the Marion and Boone County (South Shore) area, came to NATCO March 29 to hear local and statewide experts discuss funding through grants and other avenues. Here is a sampling of major Web sites that can help you when you are looking for funding, as our guest speakers advised those attending.
  
  Arkansas Department of Rural Services: www.arkansas.gov/drs/projects.html
  ASUMH Library, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance: www.cfda.gov
  Speaker Bob Pest, Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation: www.wrfoundation.org
  Twin Lakes Community Foundation: www.arcf.org
  
  

• Three Ways to Fight Spam
  Current estimates are that approximately one-half of all the e-mails sent are spam (electronic junk mail). To try and reduce the spam you receive at your home or office, three techniques could be followed, according to a co-author of Fighting Spam for Dummies, John Levine. Those three options are: hide, fight back, or filter.
  
  Hiding means to keep your e-mail address to yourself. Don’t give it out to anyone. When you use sites that require an e-mail, you can sign up for a free e-mail address at a site such as Yahoo! and then supply that one.
  
  Fighting back means to report the source to your Internet Service Provider. The reason is that a federal law in place to fight spam, called CAN-SPAM, says nothing can be done until the receiver asks the mailer to stop sending. Levine acknowledges that this is only helpful if the spammer doesn’t try to hide the location from which the e-mail originated.
  
  Filtering includes subscribing to a service such as NATCO Tech offers to filter all of your incoming e-mail. There are hardware-based solutions. Some who offer it are IronPort, BorderWare, and CipherTrust. There are also software solutions for sale or lease from vendors such as Symantec, McAfee, TrendMicro, Cloudmark, and Sophos. There are also combination software tools with anti-virus and anti-spam components.

• Weekly Maintenance on Wednesday
  Each Wednesday morning from 12:01 until 5, NATCO Technologies performs regular maintenance on Internet equipment. Your Internet service should not be affected. But, if you do experience an interruption in service during this time, please try again a few moments later. We try to minimize any "down time" by doing our maintenance at a regular time each week.
   
  All users agree to terms and guidelines published at www.natcotech.com/guidline.htm.

Feedback: NATCO invites readers' comments about the e-newsletter and suggestions for future articles. Let us know what information in the e-newsletter is most useful or what Internet issues are important to you. Readers may send suggestions for future e-newsletter articles, questions or comments to: custserv@natconet.com.

NATCO Technologies does not endorse or recommend any software or program. The purpose of the articles included in this newsletter is to keep our customers informed. We do not provide free technical support for software or programs such as Norton, McAfee, AVG Anti-Virus, Instant Messenger Services, etc. Please see the NATCO Internet brochure for full details on what is and is not covered by our free Internet Technical Support.