While the official start of Summer is still a few weeks away, many of us are already busy planning our summertime adventures. This month's newsletter provides a look at e-commerce in action for a major state attraction, some health tips for your computer, and opportunities for businesses to reach the traveling public.

        A summer cold can spoil your summertime fun, and a computer virus can spoil your summertime surfing. Citynet is taking aggressive action to kill computer viruses before they can infect your computer or the network as a whole. We have just installed a new virus-screening program that checks every single email entering our network, and the results were surprising even to us -- on just its first day of operation, it caught more than 8,000 infected emails. The number seems stunning until you consider that Citynet's mail servers now handle literally hundreds of thousands of emails each day. Still, every one of those intercepted viruses is one that won't be able to infect your system.

        The new protective program bears the somewhat ominous name of "M-Defang," and it automatically sends a notice to the sender of an infected email, stating that a virus has been detected and the email stopped. While some of the viruses are truly destructive, many others fall into the simple "nuisance" category. Users with infected computers may not even know they have a virus. For that reason, Citynet strongly recommends that all of its customers install and use a virus-protection program of the type offered by Norton or McAfee.

        Tradition and technology go hand-in-hand for the West Virginia State Fair, one of the state's biggest summertime attractions Citynet's powerful e-commerce products are on display at http://www.wvstatefair.com/, where you can buy tickets online for the fair's many headlining musical acts. Online sales have been a "win-win" for both fair-goers and State Fair management, reducing ticket lines and telephone busy signals as thousands of advance sales are made each day.

        This year's fair runs from Friday, Aug. 9 through Saturday, Aug. 17, at the fairgrounds in Fairlea, Greenbrier County. Featured musical attractions this year include Kenny Rogers, Journey, Martina McBride, Aaron Carter, Toby Keith, and Lifehouse -- plus the fair's traditional oldies and gospel programs. Put the State Fair on your schedule for this summer, and check out http://www.wvstatefair.com/ for complete information on this year's events.

        If you're a business customer, Citynet's expert team of web developers can add these powerful e-commerce features to your own site. Call our Commercial Sales Department today at 1-800-903-8906 and ask about "EComSuite," Citynet's fully integrated collection of site automation and e-commerce tools.

        To benefit all Citynet customers and ensure fast and reliable connections for everyone, Citynet is enforcing its longstanding policy against duplicate use of the same account. Duplicate use occurs when the same account is used from two or more separate locations at the same time. Citynet's system now detects these duplicate log-ins automatically, and sends a warning message to emails associated with the account. Repeated violations of the policy can result in cancellation of the account.

        While some instances are clearly cases of fraud -- we've detected as many as 20 youngsters trying to log in at the same time on a single account -- we recognize that many other instances are simple, innocent mistakes. An example: Mom is checking her email from work, while at the same time one of the kids is trying to log in from home. If you receive a warning message, don't panic -- but please discuss the situation with family members and take steps to avoid duplicate use in the future. Eliminating duplicate use helps ensure that all Citynet customers have easy, reliable access at all times. And if the time has come to have separate accounts for both home and work, just call our Customer Service Center toll-free at 1-800-881-CNET and we'll get you set up right away.

        If you own or operate a tourism-related business, you already know that recreational travel peaks this time of year. And every day, tens of thousands of potential customers are looking for information on Mountain State attractions. Citynet can help you find them, so they can find you.

        Each day, more than 30,000 individuals visit the West Virginia Interlink Network of travel-related sites to help plan their Mountain State adventures. Fill up your 2002 calendar by helping them to find you, through online advertising on West Virginia Interlink. Call Citynet today at 1-800-903-8906 to put your business front and center on this powerful network of 14 activity-specific sites.