DSL Now Available in Steamburg - 3:43 pm
Great news! Modem Madness is proud to announce that our high speed DSL service is now available in the Steamburg area! DSL is an advanced technology that allows you to receive fast, always-on, Internet over your existing phone line without making the line busy while you’re online.

High speed DSL is now available through Modem Madness in all of the following areas where Alltel is your local phone company:

Bemus Point
Chautauqua
Clymer
Ellington
Falconer
Frewsburg
Gerry
Jamestown
Kennedy
Lakewood
Panama
Randolph
Sinclairville
Steamburg
Stedman

Your first 12 months of high speed DSL service cost only $29.90 per month. This is even less than getting a second phone line for your computer with the added benefit of high speed service that doesn't tie up the phone! The DSL modem required for the connection is included for only a $9.95 shipping charge with the signing of a 1 year agreement. After your first 12 months, the regular price for DSL service is $49.90 per month, or you have the option to sign another 1 year agreement and receive 12 more months of service at a discounted rate.

DSL service gives you 30 times the speed of standard dialup for only $10-$15 more per month with an amazing 1536Kbps of download speed and 384Kbps of upload speed. With the special 1 year promotion, DSL service saves you $90 over the cost of cable modem service for the same year. Plus you keep the same email address and great service that you've always received from Modem Madness.

Please call our office at 483-2483 for additional information on DSL or any of our other services. We look forward to continuing to serve your Internet needs as the area's only locally owned and operated Internet Service Provider.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Jamestown Dialup Upgrade Notice - 7:18 pm
UPDATE 4/8/05: Verizon has located and resolved the issue with customers from Cherry Creek not being able to dial our number. They had a programming problem in the Cherry Creek switch that was pointing the number to the wrong place. Everything is now fully operational, and all customers in the Jamestown calling area MUST DIAL 483-2856 for service. All other numbers have been disconnected at this time.

The upgrade to our Jamestown dialup lines went smoother than expected this afternoon, as we only experienced about 5 minutes of actual downtime on our 483-2856 dialup number. All of our lines have now been switched over and are up and running normally.

HOWEVER, it appears that Verizon is experiencing technical difficulties with their switch in Cherry Creek (296 phone numbers) that is currently preventing customers in that area from connecting over the new lines. We have put in trouble tickets with Verizon on this issue, however they do not have an ETA at this time. Customers experiencing difficulties from Cherry Creek can call our office for automated assistance this evening outside of normal hours.

Also, there are still several dozen customers dialing outdated numbers in Jamestown. These numbers include 483-2851, 483-2852, 483-2853, and 661-3970. THESE NUMBERS WILL BE TAKEN OUT OF SERVICE ON APRIL 8. Please update your dialer to call 483-2856 if you are using one of the above numbers. Modem Madness technicians will be attempting to contact these customers during the day Friday to make the change before the numbers go out of service.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

IMPORTANT SYSTEM NEWS - 3:07 pm
UPDATE 4/4/05: We have confirmed with the telephone company that this upgrade will occur on Thursday April 7th at 11:00am. Users are encouraged to connect by 10:45am to guarantee access during the upgrade period.


In an effort to improve the quality of our dial-up Internet access service, Modem Madness will be performing a system upgrade, which will affect all dial-up subscribers who dial our Jamestown access numbers. The upgrade is tentatively scheduled for THURSDAY, APRIL 7 at 11:00AM, however we are not yet able to confirm this date. Customers should visit our homepage at www.madbbs.com on Monday or Tuesday of next week (April 4th or 5th) for additional details and to confirm the exact time and date the upgrade will be performed. This upgrade will require downtime for customers who dial in to our Jamestown numbers, however there are a few simple steps that can be taken to ensure uninterrupted service for customers who require it. It is important to note that users outside of the Jamestown local calling area or anyone using ADSL service will NOT experience this downtime. However, please continue reading for additional important information for customers in other areas.

It is very important to make sure you are dialing the correct telephone number. If Jamestown is a local telephone call for you, your computer should be dialing 483-2856. There are currently some other old access numbers that are sill in use, but these numbers will be taken out of service permanently during the upgrade. The only valid dial-up number for customers calling our Jamestown access number is 483-2856. You should be able to see the number you are dialing on the screen that comes up when you connect to the Internet, below your Username and Password. If you need assistance in changing the number you are dialing, or if you’re not sure if this will affect you, please contact our technical support department at 483-2483 x203.

The upgrade will not cause all of our access lines to be unavailable at the same time. Anyone that absolutely must be online via dialup during the day for business or other purposes should try to connect PRIOR TO 11:00AM. Any customers who are already connected at the time the upgrade begins will remain connected throughout the process. Users who are trying to dial in after 11:00 am and for up to 4 hours after that may receive errors that the remote computer is not answering or that the number is not in service. If you should get disconnected during this time frame or simply won’t be able to connect prior to 11:00am, you will need to contact our technical support department at 483-2483 x203 for assistance in getting back online via an alternate method. We will have extra support technicians available to answer phone calls during the upgrade period. Once the upgrade is completed, anyone who has been connected from prior to 11:00am will be disconnected, but you should be able to immediately reestablish your connection by dialing in normally.

In addition to upgrading our Jamestown dialup access, we have recently added nation-wide dialup access! This gives any of our dialup customers’ access to over 3,000 local dialup numbers across the United States and in select areas of Canada at no additional charge! If you are using the Modem Madness dialer (you’ll see our logo at the top of the window when you connect), you already have this list of nation-wide access numbers on your computer. Just click the Select button in the dialer and you can choose a new number by area code or city/state. If you don’t have our dialer software, please visit www.madbbs.com/setup to download it. We will also be adding a tool to our website soon to allow you to search for the numbers and enter them manually into your dialer and is meant mainly for advanced or Macintosh users. When using access numbers outside of our Jamestown, Mayville or Warren local calling areas, please be sure to check with the local telephone company in the area you are visiting to make sure that you are dialing the correct local number. It is important to note that because a number is in a city nearby you it isn’t necessarily a local telephone call and may not be toll-free. It is extremely important to check with the local telephone company regarding this matter.

Also, we’d like to remind our customers in the Jamestown local calling area that high-speed ADSL service is available through Modem Madness! We have had many inquiries recently from customers who were not aware we offer this service. WE DO! Don’t go through the hassle of switching providers and getting a new email address when you can get the same high-speed service for the same price right where you already are. Only $29.90 per month for the first 12 months and a free DSL modem is included. This is the TOTAL charge for service. There are some distance limitations on ADSL service, so please contact us at 483-2483 x202 for more information.

One final reminder: As warmer weather approaches, so does the spring thunderstorm season. Electrical surges from lightning are one of the most damaging forces that can affect a computer system. Lightning can travel a mile or more over electrical and telephone lines and cause damage to your computer even if the strike wasn’t nearby. Because of this threat it is important to make sure that your computer (and other sensitive electronics like TVs and VCRs) are connected to a surge suppression strip that protects both the electric AND phone lines. When purchasing a surge suppressor, make sure that the box clearly indicates it is a surge suppressor, not just a multi-plug strip and that jacks are included for telephone line protection (or cable TV if purchasing for use with a TV/VCR).

As always, please feel free to call our office with any additional questions or concerns you may have. We can be reached at 483-2483 in Jamestown, 753-3816 from Mayville, and 1-888-689-2449 from all other areas. Our office is open from 10:00am to 6:00pm Monday through Friday and 10:00am to 2:00pm on Saturdays.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Dialup Access Number Changes - 4:17 pm
As a part of our ongoing efforts to improve our service, Modem Madness now offers local access numbers all across the United States as well as select areas of Canada. Customers who currently use the Modem Madness software for their connection will automatically get the updated access numbers the next time they connect to the Internet. You'll know if you're using our software or not if our logo is displayed above your username and password when you connect. If you are not, the easiest way to get the new access numbers is to download our software from www.madbbs.com/setup. All of our Dialup customers will have access to the Internet using any access number provided by this software. You'll just want to check with the local telephone company and make sure you're choosing a number that is a local call from your area.

Also, customers calling our Jamestown access number should be sure that they are using 483-2856 and ONLY 483-2856. There are several other outdated numbers still being used, and these old numbers will be taken out of service on April 1, 2005.

Any questions should be directed to our technical support department at 483-2483 x203 or 888-689-2449 x203 from outside of the Jamestown area.

Revised Terms of Service Agreement - 4:08 pm
Modem Madness would like to provide notice to all of our customers that our Terms of Service agreement(s) have been modified. This is the legal agreement between Modem Madness and our customers governing access to the Internet through our service. The modified terms shall be effective 30 days from today on April 6, 2005. The modified agreements can be viewed by clicking here. The primary changes that will directly affect customers are the billing, cancellation and refund policies. Any customers with questions should email accounting@madbbs.com. By continuing to use Modem Madness after April 6, 2005 all customers are considered to have agreed to the new Terms of Service.

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Web Server Status Update - 10:14 am
As of 5:00pm yesterday, December 22, all user web directories have been recreated on the web server. Users who had a directory before will now be able to login to the server and restore their websites. Please refer to our Free Webspace FTP Instructions for assistance with getting your website back onto the server.
FrontPage Users: The new server supports a new version of the FrontPage extensions. However, this is not enabled by default. Users who wish to use Microsoft FrontPage to access their website will need to email webmaster@madbbs.com to have the FrontPage Extensions enabled for your directory.

Our online classifieds section was also affected by this. We will be restoring a backup copy of the classifieds section later today, however any recently posted listings will not be present. Please feel free to repost your listing later today when that section comes back online.

We are still involved with attempting to recover data from the previous web server, however at this time all we have recovered is unusable data fragments. We will continue to attempt data recovery for the next few days in hopes that something usable will be recovered.

The staff at Modem Madness would again like to apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. On the bright side, one of the new features of the upgraded web server is an automatic weekly backup. The server also has full support for PHP pages now as well, so any users who are familiar with this may feel free to experiment with it on the new server.

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Web Server Upgrades - 4:14 am
Modem Madness has just completed upgrading all of our web hosting servers to a newer version of server software. This new version adds support for PHP pages to work properly on our servers, which several users have requested in the past. This upgrade has been successfully completed for all commercial (domain) hosting customers. This upgrade was started on the server which hosts all of our users free web space directories, however we encountered some unexpected hardware difficulties and were forced to switch servers in the middle of the upgrade. As of the time of this posting, ALL USER HOMEPAGES ARE UNAVAILABLE AS WELL AS OUR ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS. We are working to recover this information from the previous server and get it restored as quickly as possible. In the mean time, we will be re-creating empty directories for each user that had a website, so if you have a copy of your files you can get them back online right away.

Modem Madness apologizes for the inconvenience this has caused to our users. Any additional questions should be directed to webmaster@madbbs.com.

New Webmail - 3:55 am
Things are looking a little different today when you log into your webmail here on Modem Madness. Overnight we updated our mail servers with a major software upgrade from Vircom, and with that are some extensive design enhancements to the webmail interface. It is much cleaner and more streamlined with all the options neatly organized for easy management of your email, spam filtering, whitelists and blacklists. It should even work a little faster than it used to, too! Logging in requires the same username and password you've always used. So log in, check it out and let us know what you think!

[Note for Mac OS X users: There is a known issue with Safari and Internet Explorer that Vircom is aware of and is working to fix. The new interface has been tested with Camino and Firefox and confirmed to work properly with both. If you have any issues, please contact our tech support line.]