Spring has sprung, but at DRN signs of summer are surfacing as we wrap up the interview process and make offers for our summer internships.  In 2001, DRN created a summer internship program in our marketing department.  Fast forward seventeen years, our summer internship program is going strong and has grown into other areas of the business including operations, IT, and accounting.

The benefits…

If you have been called by a phone number that you recognize or the caller ID displays a friend or neighbors name or even your own phone number however, the person talking on the other end is in fact no one you know, that phone number and caller ID information has likely been spoofed.

"Spoofing" occurs when a caller deliberately falsifies the information transmitted to your caller ID display to…

The Internet can be a scary place.  You have probably heard the news about all the data that has been compromised from Facebook user accounts.  Even if you don’t use Facebook or social media of any kind you should still have a firewall.  It is important to know what the firewall can do and what it will not do. It is imperative to change the default password that the firewall has when it comes out…

No matter what you use for a news source, you hear or read about data breaches on a daily basis.  This past week, the news has been filled with stories about Facebook and how it allowed a third party data collection agency to gather and use information about its Facebook users.

According to Breach Level Index, there have been 9,740,567,988 data records lost or stolen since 2013.  That equat…

Everyone enjoys the open guest network provided by restaurants or other public locations.  Why not jump on and save your precious cell phone data? 

When you connect to your home Wi-Fi network using a passphrase the traffic between your phone, laptop, or tablet is encrypted.  What that means is even if your neighbor is within range of your Wi-Fi they cannot see the webpages you are viewing.

Th…

Hello!  This is Tim Steinwand, Digital TV Conversion lead here at DRN.  As of March 1, 2018, DRN started its conversion to all Digital TV.  The process began with us removing about half of our digital channels on March 1^st.  After that our technicians needed to do some balancing of our TV system after the removal of those channels.  Next, on March 7^th, a large number (about 2/3) of the in the…

Are you backing up your data? If not, you should start immediately. There are different forms of backup consisting of both local and cloud backup. Local backup is when you copy your data to a flash drive or an external hard drive, an onsite server or even a network attached storage device. This method of backup is usually more expensive up front but in the long run it pays for itself - call it in…

There is a bit of irony when writing a blog post about why your business should be blogging.  The DRN blog has been active for nine months now and I hope that you have found some valuable information within our thirty-four blog posts. 

As a business owner you may be asking yourself if you should have a blog or why you need a blog. Let’s take a moment to address some of the benefits of blogging.…

Picking a wi-fi option for your house to stream Netflix and look at Facebook is a tough decision, but what if you must connect 80 devices to it and need those devices to roam from classroom to classroom or office to office?  Picking a wi-fi option is sort of like trying to choose between a Lexus and a BMW.  Tons of options and features that all sound great, but how do you know what will be the be…

One of the predicted popular apps for 2018 is GroupMe!  If you ever get tired of scrolling down your text messaging history to find that group message thread that you know you had….then maybe you want to try GroupMe! 

GroupMe is a mobile group messaging app owned by Microsoft.  It allows easy group communication.  Think of all the groups you are involved in…your family group, friend groups, wor…

Today’s technology is ever-changing and keeping up with what’s new, how it can help or where it can it take your business may seem overwhelming.  Why not concentrate on what you love the most and let DRN’s ReadiTech team provide the benefit of experience and leadership to prepare your business for the future.

Hi, this is Mary Lou Sundby, Business Account Representative for DRN and DRN ReadiTech…

Hello, my name is Troy Radermacher and I’m the Accounting Manager at DRN. 

Staring on January 1, 2018 the DRN Board of Directors made some exciting changes for our cooperative members.  January 1 is the first day that Internet service was added as a patronage allocable service.  In the past, your local land line and any other services with the phone such as caller id, call waiting and NDLD long…

Hello, my name is Michelle Schroeder and I am the marketing specialist for DRN and DRN ReadiTech. I want to just take a few minutes of your time to remind you how lucky we are to live in a 100% fiber connected territory.

In 2012, DRN completed the fiber to the home project. A project that started in 2004 and invested more than $90 million in fiber infrastructure in southeast North Dakota. D…

Every so often I need to pinch myself when I reflect on the fact that I work for the oldest telephone cooperative in ND.  Established in 1950, DRN maintains a fiber optic network to provide essential and advanced telecommunication services to the residents of south central North Dakota.  Or as I like to say:  The Deep South, of ND.

Big deal you say?  It is a real big deal when you consider the …

It’s well-known now that there are many types of scams going around, from unsolicited phone calls to computer pop-ups. However, I recently ran into one that I hadn’t heard of yet…

DRN offers an antivirus package of Web Guardian, a product of Webroot. One of our customers received a call from someone claiming to be with Webroot. They told her that her computer was infected and had IP affiliation…