During January 2003, the hardware used to process email for EZ-Nettools was substantially upgraded. Ironically, even though we increased the number of computers processing the mail by four fold, the response time decreased. The problems were very complex and took several weeks to rectify.

Apology

We have tried to provide a high level of service with EZ-NetTools. However, during this period of time the levels of service for retrieving email were less than we strive to provide. For this we apologize.

Explanation

During our testing of the new email system hardware in December and January, these problems did not manifest themselves. Only under the full load of all e-mail clients did the problem become apparent. We could not go back to the old hardware architecture, because it was straining under the processing load. The nature of the problem is very technical and is an inherent property of the mail processing software called POP [post office protocol]. POP is very standard and common, albeit a very old e-mail protocol.

The problems we experienced are directly related to the number and amount of messages that are stored in an e-mail account. The recent, dramatic increase in e-mail messages is overwhelming our system. Most of you may have noticed a sharp rise in junk e-mail in recent months. Because of a "quirk" with the e-mail software, many of these messages are duplicates of messages that have already been read.

The problem was solved on Friday afternoon, February 28, by replacing the POP software with a more efficient version. This problem did accelerate our efforts to update the EZ-OnlineMail software. A number of our customers who were experiencing more difficult problems opted to participate in our beta testing of this new software. We should have a new version available shortly.

Click here for more information about the mail problem and about our beta testing program.

Conclusion

As traffic on the EZ-NetTools servers increases, we must increase the capacity of our systems. Sometimes this requires major upgrades. Unfortunately, even months of testing cannot reveal all potential problems. However, our goal is to make these updates appear seamless to you. This time we were less than perfect. Again we apologize for those who experienced problems with their email system during January and February.