SpoCom.Com's
Frequently Asked Questions

We are endeavoring to keep this page up-to-date with the latest answers and fixes to your questions.  If you have questions that you think should be added to this page, please feel free to send them to us via e-mail at spocom@spocom.com or by filling out the form on our Feedback Page.

Q. What are SpoCom.Com's tech support hours?
A. SpoCom's technicians are available from 9am to 8pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and until 5:30 pm on Thursday and 2 pm Saturday. We do not work on Sunday. We do, however, check our answering machine after hours and on Sunday and will respond to an emergency, such as one of our servers going down.

Q. How do I download a program from the Internet and set it up?
A. Click here to get detailed instructions with illustrations on how to do this with the program Eudora Light.   Other programs are downloaded and setup the same way.

Q. How many pornographic sites does SpoCom.Com filter out access to?
A. SpoCom.Com filters out in excess of 1,750,000 individual sites and our list is growing daily.

Q. Why can't I go to a site that I know is okay?
A. SpoCom.Com's filter is set to eliminate known servers that are major sources of pornography on the Internet, such as GeoCities, thus you may know of a good site on the GeoCities server (or some other similar server), but are unable to go to it because GeoCities entire class C is filtered.

Q. Should I turn my PC off when I'm not using it, or leave it on all the time?
A. There are two schools of thought on this, but we're in favor of turning your machine off when not using it, or at least turn it off at night when you go to bed. The reason is not the processor, but the rather cheap modems they put in PC's these days. They periodically need to be reset and the only way to reset an internal modem is to completely power off your machine (a reboot or sleep mode won't do it). An added boon to turning your machine off is that your system resources (as well as your modem) come up fresh and clean and at peak efficiency. Each time you open and close a program, remnants are left in the system that take up resources that slow your performance down.

Q. Why do I sometimes have trouble sending e-mail to certain addresses?
A. The most common reasons an e-mail won't deliver are:
    1. The address is not spelled or  typed correctly (all e-mail addresses should have no spaces, no commas, an @ sign in the address followed by a domain name, such as somewhere.com).
    2. The address no longer exists.
    3. The mail server for the person you're mailing is temporarily down.
NOTE: SpoCom.Com is not filtering mail access, so the SpoCom filter cannot be the cause of undeliverable mail.

Q. Does SpoCom.Com support Macintosh?
A. Yes, we support Macs with System 8.1 or above.  Below system 8.1 there are so many problems and the machines that run it are too underpowered for proper internet use, which creates an excess of technical support.

Q. Does SpoCom.Com support Windows 3.1?
A. No, we're sorry, at this time we do not support Windows 3.1, as the machines that run it are too underpowered to used the internet properly and the problems it has creates an excess of technical support.

Q. What reasons might cause frequent disconnections and low login speeds?
A. There might be several reasons for this, but usually they fall under one of the following categories:
    1. Bad modem, or modem going bad, or poor quality modem - get another or better modem usually solves this issue.
    2. Modem conflict with SpoCom's Lucent Technology digital modems, which can often be resolved by adding an initialization string - see our How-to pages under Modems to resolve this issue.
    3. Telephone line noise - your local telephone company can check your lines for excessive noise, but you may sometimes resolve this issue by simply tightening the connections on your phone service box on the side of your house and the wall jack your modem line is plugged into.

Q. Why does the server take my password and other times not?
A. Login names and passwords are case-sensitive and must be typed exactly right.   The most common error is to try to log in with your cap-locks on.

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