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Eugene Roman, Group President of Bell Systems and Technology along with Rebecca Shipman (Associate Director), Nathalie Micucci (K-Net Sales Account, Ottawa), Steve Burton (Sales Manager, Ottawa) and Gary Martin (Engineer, Sudbury) with Bell hosted a meeting on May 18 at their downtown Toronto office with representatives from FedNor and K-Net. Carl Seibel, Telecom Officer with FedNor along with K-Net staff (Dan and Brian) joined the Bell Canada team to discuss our work over the past few years in developing telecom network in Northwestern Ontario. The meeting provided an opportunity to examine areas of common interest and further the Bell and K-Net partnership in developing telecom infrastructure and services in First Nations across Ontario.

A tour of Bell exCITE! Co-lab provided the team with an opportunity to observe and share strategic planning and engagement workshop strategies with each other.

Thomas Harper of Koocheching First Nation successfully made a call to K-Net Services from the Koocheching school on May 28. What was unique about this call was that it was completed using a computer and a two-way satellite internet service supplied by Industry Canada's First Nations SchoolNet program along with the Skype VOIP software. Of special significance is the fact that Koocheching First Nation remains one of the last Nishnawbe Aski Nation communities that has only a single radio phone serving the entire community.

Koocheching FN applied to the BRAND and FedNor programs for financial support to install a broadband connection to their community. BRAND rejected the portion of the Windigo First Nations Council's proposal that included Koocheching (even though they included them on their graphical presentation to the rest of the world). The Chief and Council are now working with FedNor in the hope that they will support their application to develop an adequate broadband connection to serve their community.

In the meantime, the Chief and Council are now investing in an interim local solution that will try to use the two-way satellite internet service at the school to deliver a connection for the families and all the buildings presently located in Koocheching. A local wireless solution is being purchased by the band that will hopefully be able to reach all the homes and deliver a connection to the rest of the world.

The VOIP software that can connect everyone to Koocheching and others is available free at http://www.skype.com ... you need a sound charge with speakers along with a microphone to be able to use this software and connect with others. A headset with a microphone will provide you with a little more privacy (these cost about $20). After loading the software, you are ready to make some calls using this on-line service. It is a good idea to write e-mail messages to everyone letting them know your username. The K-Net Helpdesk has three people connected to the Skype service ...

• John Moreau (Skype username = johnknet)
• Jamie Ray (jamie-knet)
• Jeannie Carpenter (jeannie)

The computer in the Koocheching school has Thomas Skype's username on it (tomharper). Give it a try ...

Recommended listening .... CBC's Business Network had a short 2 minute radio column entitled "How to avoid spam scams". (Requires Real Audio to hear this clip. Click here to get the free player.)

Recommended reading ... If you are having problems with your email you can go to K-Net Help and look up the K-Net Email FAQ

The K-Net e-mail service is now facing a crisis that requires everyone's help. We need EVERYONE to empty their mail boxes of all these different spam and virus messages. There are now over 500 e-mail accounts that are "over quota". This means each of these accounts have over 50M of storage space being used and are no longer able to be used to send or receive messages unless these messages are either deleted or downloaded to your own computer.

One hint to delete messages is contained in the K-Net Email FAQ web site. I am over my quota but I am not allowed to delete any messages.

• You need to turn off the use of your Trash bin.
• Login to your email.
• Go to "Options" then to "Folder Preferences"
• Change "Trash Folder:" so that it is "Do Not Use Trash"
• Click "Submit"
• Now you should be able to delete any message and clean up your mail box

Using SHOW ALL and TOGGLE ALL are two mail features that will help speed up the process of doing this housekeeping.

K-Net is now being forced to begin deleting e-mail accounts that are not being used. This means that if you do not use your e-mail account then it will be deleted to help free up storage space. Of course, if your e-mail account is deleted then this will also remove your myknet.org web site, if you have set up a personal homepage on myknet.org ... so, the two messages are ...

USE IT OR LOSE IT and CLEAN UP YOUR MAIL BOX!!

Thanks for your help in making K-Net the best place to be on-line!!