DSL uses a clever technology to allow broadband Internet access over the same copper line you use for your telephone. The down side of this is that your telephone equipment can cause some problems for your broadband connection. For this reason DSL modems ship with a small supply of DSL filters. These filters are designed to be connected inline between your existing phone plug and the wall jack.

In the early days of DSL these filters really weren't a big deal and we really only pushed their use with FAX machines. However, today with DSL over ATM technology filters are more important. OWT suggests that EVERY phone, FAX machine, modem or satellite receiver be connected to the phone line with a filter connected. If your DSL is running slow or has any reliability issues we urge you to make sure all standard phone equipment is connected through a filter. If you can't find your filters please contact tech support and we will try to help you out.

We are once again getting some calls regarding an Email that appears to be from us requesting your username and password. WE WILL NEVER DO THIS!!! WE NEVER HAVE IN 15 YEARS AND WON'T EVER IN THE FUTURE!!!! Anytime you get an Email from ANYONE asking for your username and password it is almost certainly BOGUS!

We don't just provide great tech support - we can fix your ailing PC or Mac as well. From virus issues and blown up Windows to replacing drives and other components let OWT get the job done right and save you money in the process. OWT has very competitive service rates and a lot of experience with both PCs and Macs. We do quite a bit of hardware repair and just about any kind of software related repair including data recovery. We can save you or your business money!

Nervous about that upgrade? Let OWT take the hassles away for you. Call 783-3454 to make an appointment - we have openings just about every day!

A fascinating new botnet has been found running on DSL modems and routers running an embedded Linux distribution.

The worm is called "psyb0t" and appears to have been circulating since at least January, 2009. The worm infects any of a family of Linux Mipsel devices ("Mipsel" is the port of Debian Linux on MIPS processors) that contain one of several administration interfaces. The worm uses a dictionary attack against the admin interface.

If you have a DSL modem or Ethernet router with a "weak" password (something silly like admin and password) then YOU MAY BE VULNERABLE. We will have more info as it becomes available.

If your computer is acting up suddenly consider that any memory (RAM) recently installed (even many weeks ago) could be the culprit. We are seeing more RAM failures than at any time in memory and so swapping RAM out is now one of the first things we consider.

After a roughly 2 hour outage our NoaNET service came to life at 6:15 PM tonight. NoaNET informs us that there was a fiber cut near Yakima that was the main cause but NoaNET is a fiber RING which means that a single cut is not supposed to bring down the whole network. Somehow this cut did cause some "network instability", which we can only speculate about, that was enough to bring their substantial network to its knees.

In a call from a very competent NoaNET staff member tonight they were actually surprised we were back up as they were merely updating us on the severity of the cut. This might mean that we are in for a series of brief outages as they piece things back together.

Our dial-up phone number lookup tool is now live! You can now use our dial-up services most anywhere in the U.S!

Recent server upgrades allow us to now support sending and receiving secure Email using SSL and TLS. Now your Email passwords and Email can be encrypted for security.

Many of our mail services have been upgraded! You should find that everything runs faster and smoother now. The bad news is that ONE TIME you will have to download ALL of the Email on the server. You might find it ironic that the main reason for this upgrade was a trend in users leaving weeks or months of Email on the server but we didn't set out to punish you for that - it's just the result of moving to an improved functionality. Please be patient as once you have read your Email once things should be much faster going forward.