Semo.net Weblog

It appears that shortly before 7pm some where upstream from St Louis AT&T Internet had a total network outage that lasted a few minutes with misc routing problems that lasted at least 30 minutes more.

Both the semo.net & IMS AT&T Internet connections lost all INTERNET traffic PAST St Louis for around 5 minutes. We experienced routing problems to the Socket COLO which feeds all of our dial up service for SBC/AT&T areas for another 10 to 15 minutes and to the Level 3 COLO that feeds our Windstream DSL and some Windstream dial up for a total of around 30 minutes.

While the specifics of the problem have not yet been explained by AT&T, the problem does appear to be resolved; thank you for your patience.

ConAgra Foods today announced that it has taken the precautionary measure of voluntarily recalling all varieties of Peter Pan Peanut Butter and Great Value Peanut Butter beginning with product code 2111 imprinted on the lid of both brands. ConAgra Foods is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate a statistical report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that these products may be linked to the food borne illness salmonella.
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A computer that carries out calculations using tiny bubbles instead of electricity has been developed by US researchers.

The “microfluidic” computer performs calculation by squeezing bubbles through tiny channels etched into a chip. It can perform all of the logical operations needed to make a general-purpose computer.

In practice, such a computer would be much bigger than a PC and about a thousand times slower. Nevertheless, the bubble-based computer could lead to improved microfluidic technology for chemical analysis, say its designers…read more

From TVWeek:

President Bush is reopening the fight over government support of public television, unveiling a 2007 government fiscal year budget that would cut federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by nearly 25 percent.

A spokeswoman for PBS said that the cuts would be “disastrous” for public TV stations.

“For PBS, it could mean the end of our ability to support some of the most treasured educational children’s series and primetime icons to which CPB funding contributes,” said Lea Sloan, VP-communications.

Public four-year colleges in Missouri could lose some state aid if their tuition increases exceed the rate of inflation under legislation being considered by state lawmakers.Southeast Missouri State University president Dr. Ken Dobbins hopes lawmakers will revise the measure so it doesn’t penalize schools such as Southeast that have relatively low student fees. Dobbins testified before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday.

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Via SeMissourian

SeMissourian:

While water skiing with her friends at Lake Wappapello in the summer of 1970, Judy McMullin lost her brand-new high school class ring.

“I had only had it a month,” said McMullin, a graduate of Central High School who now lives in Chaffee, Mo. “I was so disappointed that I’d lost it so soon.”

Now, 37 years later, McMullin has her ring back…read more

Dear semo.net users,

Over the past year, IMS and semo.net have been merging networks in an effort to keep costs down for both companies. In January, Bob Mielke and I agreed that it was time to completely merge both networks. Today, Poplar Bluff Internet purchased the business assets of IMS.

Part of our agreement was to keep the downtown IMS office open. Our IT staff will move their offices downtown to share office space with Denise Magruder from IMS and over the course of the next year, we have plans to move many of our servers from our semo.net Westwood location down to the IMS downtown location. Our customer support and billing teams will stay at Westwood Blvd next to Northtown Drugs.

Our customers (semo.net, pbmo.net, sheltonbbs.net & now IMSInternet.net) will continue to recieve services tomorrow just like today. We are working to make this an easy transition.

We thank you for your loyalty. Please think of us when you are considering any type of change to your Internet service. If you want to switch from dialup to broadband, we hope you will call us first. We can provide DSL service from AT&T, Alltel/Windstream and BPS telephone, Cable Internet over Poplar Bluff City Cable and New Wave Cable Systems, plus our fixed broadband wireless service surrounds much of Poplar Bluff. Our customer service representatives will find the best solution for you and help you along the way.

Thank you,
Brian

UPDATE: Windstream has installed additional network capacity and full service has been restored. We thank them for their help in this matter.

Dear user,

As you’ve probably noticed, many customers are experiencing reduced DSL peformance in Windstream service areas. We have been working with Windstream to determine the source of this problem, and now can report to you that the Windstream network uplink in the area has reached its maximum capacity. This is a problem with Windstream’s network, and affects all DSL customers in the area, not just semo.net customers.

Windstream tells us that they are working on installing additional network capacity, but they have not given us a due date for this yet.
We will keep you informed as we learn more. Thank you for your patience as the phone company corrects this issue.

Thank you,
semo.net Technical Support
http://semo.net/helpdesk.php
support@semo.net
1.877.686.9114