Easy access to the Internet

Subject: Easy access to the Internet
From: Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 1994 16:06:36 CDT

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Date: Fri, 16 Sep 1994 12:23:37 -0400
From: Carl Stieren <stieren -at- DEV -dot- SIMWARE -dot- COM>
Subject: Easy access to the Internet

Can anyone who reads TECHWR-L at home recommend a good telecommunications
program with easy access to the Internet?

I'm an old hacker from way back, so I don't mind using a medieval version of
Procomm to connect to National Capital Freenet when I'm at home, but I have
friends who don't want to know how TCP/IP works. They don't ever want to
have to learn Unix or even Unix terminology.

Is there a program they can use? Has anyone on TECHWR-L ever used one?

Carl Stieren.................Technical Writer.................Simware, Inc
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That's the problem with kids these days! They want all of the fruit and
none of the labor! Why, when I was their age I had to program computers
on punched paper cards and... uh, oh, excuse me. <Ahem>

Sure, I read TECHWR-L at home, but I cheated. One of my coworkers wanted
to try out a PPP (1) server, so I set up a PPP client at home and a POP (2)
server at work and then I modem into work and use and abuse the Internet
late at night (the way God intended!). I have a newsreader, Mosaic 2a6,
Eudora, NCSA Telnet, and FTP, all from clients on my home machine.

Anyone with a Mac or a PC at home could do this. They would need access
to a PPP server (these are available in many places on a subscription
basis) and someone who knows how this stuff works to set it up for them.
The advantage is that once all the sys admin stuff has been done, you
are left with a simple point and click Windows or Mac interface to the
Net, including News, FTP, WWW, Telnet, WAIS, Email, whatever.

The easiest way, though, is to go with one of the point and click modem
subscription services like AOL.

Footnotes:

(1) PPP is Point to Point Protocol, a method of connection to a network
over a serial line. PPP is the successor to SLIP (Serial Line Internet
Protocol).

(2) POP is Post Office Protocol, a method of supplying networked Mac and
Windows based machines with password validated access to UNIX based
mail services.

_______________ _____
/ ___ __/__\ \ / / _\ Steve Fouts
/___ \| | ___\ | / __\ sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
/ / \ | \ / \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "She understood, as he did, that all writing
was infernally boring and futile, but that it had to be done out of respect
for tradition" --Stanislaw Lem


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