With recent headlines about NSA snooping on US citizen email, phonecalls, text messages, and social media posts -- its easy to feel that privacy is a thing of the past. 

There actually are ways to protect yourself from un-warranted intrusions into your personal communications.

StartPage offers a trackless and secure search engine that insulates users from government tracking and intrusion, full details are available on the StartPage website.

Every time you use a regular search engine, your search data is recorded. Major search engines capture your IP address and use tracking cookies to make a record of your search terms, the time of your visit, and the links you choose - then they store that information in a giant database. Those searches reveal a shocking amount of personal information about you, such as your interests, family circumstances, political leanings, medical conditions, and more.

StartMail will soon be ready for beta testing, and will offer users an secure, encrypted email option, secure from government eavesdropping.

There are probably many other good options depending on your own personal needs.

Regardless of your personal feelings about the NSA privacy intrusions -- we all need to become more aware of ways to protect our personal data from criminals, or those who would use that data to do us harm.

And while lively debate blankets the media, it doesn't hurt to consider options to protect yourself, and your data.

At the June general meeting we announced a T-shirt design contest for the next CapMac shirt. Here is the information for those who didn't get to attend the meeting. Questions can be addressed to Nancy Gravley.

Members are invited to submit designs for the next CapMac T-shirt. Here are the rules:

1. Design(s) to be received by the board via email prior to the start of the board meeting on July 2nd. The meeting starts at 7:00 PM. Designs can be emailed to any board member, but be sure and get a confirmation that your design has been received.
2. The board reserves the right to reject any entry that is not of original design or violates copyright rules.
3. Entries may contain the CapMac Cap-a-dillo or Jag-a-dillo icon. You can download this high resolution version of the Cap-a-dillo logo to use. You can change the color of the logo if you want.
4. Contest entries will be displayed at the July general meeting and then placed on the website where voting will take place.
5. Winning design will be announced at the August general meeting. Shirts will be available at the September general meeting.

After months of testing -- Apple today released the latest update to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, available to all users in Software Update under the Apple icon in the top menu bar.

The OS X 10.8.4 Update includes many important features, and is recommended for all users:

The final release of OS X 10.8.4 is the same 12E55 version that was seeded to developers last month.

- OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.4   [Delta - 343.33 MB]
- OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.4   [Combo - 810.98 MB]

Apple has also released important security updates for OS X Lion and Snow Leopard:

- Security Update 2013-002 (Lion)   [57.69 MB]
- Security Update 2013-002 Server (Lion)   [105.61 MB]

- Security Update 2013-002 (Snow Leopard)  [329.85 MB]
- Security Update 2013-002 Server (Snow Leopard)  [404.83 MB]

Remember, its always a good idea to have a full backup of your computer before applying any update.

Remember any of these?  HOward, WAlnut, GReenwood, TWinbrook, HOmestead, HIckory. The double caps might be a clue -- they were some of the named phone exchanges in Austin. Then in the late 1960's named exchanges were replaced by all-digit phone numbers.

Starting today, Austin replaces those sterile seven-digit numbers with mandatory ten-digit ones -- as we begin a migration to a multiple-area code overlay in the 512 area code -- to accomodate growth in the Central Texas area.

If you're dialing any number in the 512 area code, you must now dial the full ten-digit number, including the area code, to be connected.

More importantly -- now's the perfect time to review and refresh your entire AddressBook and Contact list, and update phone numbers to ensure that they will dial correctly under the new system.

Those who travel internationally, or make extensive use of dialed phone extensions, passwords, or dialing prompts, may want to review these hints that could make your extra-digit dialing less cumbersome.

Ever wondered why emails to your CapMac email account are often delayed or lost?  So have we.

That's why we found this nifty online tool from Google so interesting -- it enables users to easily parse email headers and determine which mail servers are causing their emails to be delayed, or in some cases even 'lost'.

Google's own tool fingered the ultimate source of CapMac's mail delays ----> GOOGLE.

Since light travels at  186,282 mi/sec -- one has to wonder where Google  cached, indexed, or shared emails for hours at a time. Or perhaps, the FBI is just overwhelmed with all of our juicy gossip. 

If you routinely send time-sensitive email from a Google email account -- better reconsider.  

Our tests indicate that emails sent from Google are often delayed for nine hours or more -- if they get delivered at all.

You should also remember that Google now provides 'free' branded email services for many businesses, organizations, and educational institutions, including UT Austin and UTSA in San Antonio. Just because you seem to be using another domain doesn't mean that Google isn't secretly handling your mail.

In fairness, we've reached out to Google for an explanation -- that is, if our email gets delivered by their servers.

Several members report they are having problems receiving emails addressed to their CapMac email address. 

Often emails are being bounced back to the sender, with a report that the receiving server is 'misconfigured'. In some cases, users report that mail sent from Google is rejected – while mail originating elsewhere is not. 

We've audited all settings on the CapMac server, including spam and virus rejection software – and found the settings to be correct.  

Our server is also monitored 24x7x365 by www.mxtoolbox.com, a national service that monitors standards compliance and mail server best practices. When a problem does occur, the CapMac server team is notified, and responds immediately.

MxToolBox has passed CapMac's mail server configuration with a perfect score.

You can find full details on what's happening in our HelpDesk Wiki.

Ever wondered what's so complicated about running, and maintaining a mail server?  

Check out a few of the RFC standards we must comply with.

Anytime you have concerns or questions about any aspect of CapMac mail, please drop us a note: mailhelp@capmac.org

The points earned in the first quarter of 2013 for the 300 Club have been posted in the Members Only Wiki. Check them out and make sure yours are correct, plus see what others have accomplished.