H V C N

Services

Server Platform and Software

The HVCN currently operates this World Wide Web (WWW) server. The server was upgraded on Jan 2, 2002 to a Dell Poweredge (tm) 500 SC Minitower which contains an Intel Celeron (tm) 900 Mhz. processor. This server runs OpenBSD, which is a secure unix-like operating system, the Apache HTTP Server, Backtalk Conferencing System software, and Majordomo mailing list management software. HVCN runs MySQL relational database software and PHP script language is available for producing dynamic page content. Additional software and services are planned for the future.

Our internet connection is provided by Washtenaw County Government.

Who is eligible for HVCN services?

For-profit companies and other commercial entities do not qualify and cannot use our services except that links to commercial sites are allowed in the Community Information Centers as a public service.

What Communities are served by HVCN?

Our coverage area includes all of Washtenaw County plus the parts of western Wayne County and southern Livingston County that are reachable from Ann Arbor by a local phone call (includes Pinckney, Walled Lake, South Lyon, Plymouth, Canton). Organizations that lie beyond our geographical limits may still qualify for services, but membership in HVCN is required ($25/year) rather than optional for such organizations.

Full List of HVCN Services

All services are free and do not require advertising, unless otherwise noted. Contact webmaster@hvcn.org to get started.

Community Information Centers

HVCN maintains Infocenters containing community information and web links organized by topic. These sites are maintained regularly.to ensure that they are up to date and as accurate as possible. Access to this information is free to anyone on the net by browsing http://www.hvcn.org/.

Community Forums

HVCN hosts a number of open public forums on topics of interest to the community. These forums may be accessed through the web, starting at the Backtalk Welcome page on HVCN. In order to participate, users must create a conference account on HVCN. Conference accounts are free, and they are available to anyone who wants to participate. They are separate from the email/access accounts explained below.

Private conferences are also available, but require membership in HVCN at the $100/year level.

Website Hosting Services

Up to 10 Megabytes of space is available for holding your website. Server side forms processing is available via SSI. CGI, or PHP, but streaming media is not supported.

We can also help you with the technical details of developing your Web page. For more information, contact Dan Romanchik at danr@hvcn.org.

E-mail Accounts

If you have a computer and a modem, you can get online for free. By agreement with Cyberspace Communications, Inc., a cooperating non-profit organization, you can dial up, create your own free e-mail account, and send or receive email via the internet. You can also access our community infocenters and other web sites on the internet in text-only mode from your account.

Grex's dialup lines are located only in Ann Arbor, so you can use this service conveniently only if you are located within the range of a local call. Fortunately this is nearly the entire county of Washtenaw, together with significant portions of western Wayne ounty and southern Livingston County. For more information on establishing you own personal e-mail account, see the HVCN / Grex dialup access page.

Worldwide Web Access

If you do not have access to the web, you can also use your free dial-up and e-mail account on Grex to access the web, too. Web access is offered via the lynx browser, which is supplied on Grex. Full graphical web browsing is not available unless you obtain web access through a commercial or noncommercial internet provider. These services are available at reasonable rates.

Mailing List Maintenance

If your organization wants to conduct its business by e-mail. HVCN can supply mailing list maintenance services via majordomo. This permits the participants to send messages to a single address, which forwards it to the list of particpants. Mailing lists can be managed remotely by email, and may be open or closed, depending upon your needs. For more information contact webmaster@hvcn.org.

Domain Hosting

If you wish to register a domain at your expense, HVCN will provide the name servers, thus hosting your domain.

Web Virtual Host

This service requires that you have a hosted domain, and allows the HVCN web server to appear to be in your domain. It is free, but it requires that you place an acknowledgment for the domain and web hosting along with a link to HVCN on your home page,

Mail Virtual Host

This service requires that you have a hosted domain and allows HVCN's mail transport to process mail sent to email addresses in your domain. You may have as many addresses as you like, but each one must forward to a valid email address elsewhere, such as AOL, MSN, any other internet service provider (ISP), or Grex. HVCN does not provide post office services except through Grex.

MySQL Database with PHP dynamic page creation

This is a Relational database with web front-end via PHP-created dynamic page content. If you want to use it for a public purpose, it is free. If the data is for private use only by your organization, it requires membership in HVCN at the $100/year level.

Content Management

(available soon)

HVCN is developing a standard suite of PHP scripts and has set aside a MySQL database to provide support for web-based content management. This service will allow part or all of your website to contain content that can be managed (updated) simply by filling out a web form.)

This page was last modified on May 5, 2002.

Please send comments to webmaster@hvcn.org