Welcome

I know I should do this more often but I wanted to spend a bit of time introducing one of our newest customers - The English Learning Centre.

The English Learning Centre (http://www.ieltsnz.co.nz), owned by Gary Ferguson, is a home based business focused on assisting International Students to pass their IELTS test. Gary teaches strategies to help International Students and Immigrants to do well in the IELTS Test (International English Testing Systems). Gary runs intensive courses for small groups of all different nationalities to build upon and maximise their English language skills

Xmas Hours

Strobe Net Limited will be open all days except statutory holidays. For the period between Christmas and New Years we’ll also be on skeleton staff but all services will remain as usual.

Term of the Month

A network based on TCP/IP protocols (an Internet) belonging to an organisation, usually a corporation, accessible only by the organisation’s members, employees, or others with authorisation. An intranet's Web sites look and act just like any other Web sites, but the firewall surrounding an intranet fends off unauthorised access.

Like the Internet itself, Intranets are used to share information. Secure Intranets are now the fastest-growing segment of the Internet because they are much less expensive to build and manage than private networks based on proprietary protocols.

More definitions can be found at http://www.webopedia.com

Statistics of Interest

** Author wins domain name **

Michael Crichton, American author of best-sellers "Jurassic Park" and "Rising Sun," has won a case against an alleged cybersquatter who registered the domain name michaelcrichton.com 5 years ago. The arbitrators have ruled that the domain name be transferred to the author.

** Internet Abuse in the work place **

The high unemployment rate — 5.7 percent for October 2002 in the United States — hasn't deterred workers from goofing off on the job. Data from Websense Inc. indicates that Internet misuse costs American corporations more than $85 billion annually in lost productivity — an increase of 35 percent since the year prior.

** US Digital Media Universe Audience Reach October 2002 **

Audience reach is the percentage of US home and work internet users estimated to have searched on each site at least once during the month through a web browser or some other "online" means. For October 2002, there were an estimated 129 million active at home and at work internet users in the US.

As a summary, the following are the four top results:
- Google 29.2 %
- Yahoo 28.5%
- MSN 28.1%
- AOL 19.7%

Quote of the Month

“If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play at it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf.“

- Bob Hope

Remember if you have any queries or would like assistance - please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Have a great month

Amanda and the Strobe Net team.