No Longer Getting Cableone Email?

As many of you are aware ... Cableone has made some changes to their email servers which affects the way Cableone subscribers receive their email.  Those changes take effect this month and if you've haven't migrated your email account over to the new system, you will stop receiving email.

Here's what's happening ...

In the past, Cableone hosted their own in-house email servers.  Instead of continuing to do this, they have now partnered with Google to use the Gmail servers instead.  So what does this mean to you?

Not a whole lot, but you do need to follow some steps to migrate your email over to the new system.  First, here's what you need to know:

1. You do NOT need to sign up for Gmail 
2. Your email address will stay the same
3. You will be asked to create a new password that is at least 8 characters long (and contains a capital letter and number).  If you're password already met this requirement, then you won't need to create a new password.

Now that you  know all of that, you just need to follow the steps to migrate your email over to the new system.  To do so, you can click here to start the Cableone migration process.

The actual process consists of a couple of steps.

1. Log into your existing cableone account on the web and follow the prompts (creating a new password)
2. Click the link (when asked) to activate your new account
3. Reconfigure your email settings (if you use web mail, you don't need to do this step).

Many people struggle with reconfiguring their email settings.  If you're not comfortable doing this, you can call Cableone tech support to have them walk you through the steps (or schedule an appointment with me to help you).  Below is a summary of the new POP3, SMTP, and server settings you'll need:

• POP3:   pop3.gmail.com    (Port 995 with SSL)
• SMTP:  smtp.gmail.com    (Port 465 with SSL)

If you are comfortable reconfiguring your email settings, here are a few links to help you. 

If you use Outlook Express for email, click here for step by step instructions on reconfiguring your email.

If you use Windows Mail for email, click here for step by step instructions on reconfiguring your email.

For help reconfiguring other email clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, iPhone, etc.), click here.

If you'd like to speak with a Cableone tech, call 1-877-692-2253.

Cablone Intenet Scam - Beware!

This morning I received an email (supposedly from Cableone) saying that my email settings (POP3 and SMTP) had been changed.   Of course, my initial reaction was one of alarm.  I didn't know if somebody had hacked my email account or if Cableone was making changes. Below is a copy of the email I received.

SMTP and POP3 servers for myemail@cableone.net mailbox are changed. Please carefully read the attached instructions before updating settings.

http://groups.google.com/group/forrestgump33/web/setup.zip

Then I took a closer a look at the web link (URL) in the message.  Of course, I couldn't figure out at first what "Google Groups" had to do with my cableone email .... but then I took a closer a look.  If you read it carefully, you'll spot the word, "forrestgump" ... which let me quickly identify the email message as a hoax.

Another big tipoff is that if you look at the last bit of the email link, you see "setup.zip"  - that is a huge clue that this is a scam.  If you click this link, it will download some type of executable file to your computer ... most likely a virus or malicious program of some sort.

So this is one email you definitely want to ignore and delete ASAP!  Hoepfully the explanation above will also help you better identify these type of hoaxes and scams in the future.