Conference noted::ibmpc-95

    RE: .96 
    
    >Say what? How could this possibly make a difference? If the link on
    >the alternate page is to www.weather.com, clicking it is
    >indistinguishable from typing in www.weather.com yourself. Selecting
    >a hyperlink on another page doesn't route through "that link" -- it
    >just provides the URL to use, directly, from your browser.
         
    Sorry Paul, I had it in my brain when entering my reply of a mirrored
    site. Obviously, the Weather Channel site isn't mirrored of course.
    Yes, as you have stated, it's indistinguishable where one clicks on
    a link, as it simply provides the url directly to your browser.
    
    Bob

Anyone have recomendations for an ISP in the Nashua NH area that provide disk
space for web pages?

I'm looking for testimonials from people that actually used the service for 
awhile and consistently get reliable connections.

Thanks,
Craig

    I'm using Ultranet - they have a local dial-up.  Their 100 hours
    a month plan is $19.95 with a 10% discount for Digital employees
    (they use Alpha servers exclusively).  They're located out of
    Marlboro, MA.  The connections seem pretty reliable; I don't
    recall ever getting bounced after a connection was established.
    
    Check out http://www.ultranet.com for more info.

I have had token.net since last fall.  They were bought up a while ago and
moved and had a variety of business problems, but while their dial-in lines
were down, they bought access for their customers through TIAC.

Aside from what I mentioned above, I get good quality connections from Nashua
to their Nashua local number (invariably 28.8); I have seldom had busy signals
(never since they expanded their lines).  They give some number of megs for
web/ftp etc but I can't remember how many.  5?  10?

The best part about token is that you get 5 POP mailboxes with your account. 
This is great for a family.  BTW, while their dialup lines were down, their
mail, news, web, and name servers continued running very reliably.

Finally, they are a local establishment, which I like to support.

They charge $20/month unlimited access.  There is a DEC discount (I can't
remember if it is $1 or $2.  They have not charged me for a long time, since
they gave free access while they were switching things around).

Burns

    
     I sign up with The Internet Connection .  This is a free 30 day
    trial. Is anyone else with the company ?  Do they give DEC discounts ?

    Thanks  Bob 
    

Our family has had good luck with earthlink. They also charge
$19.95 for unlimited service. They have local lines in Nashua.
They're at www.earthlink.com.

Dave

p.s. That 10% discount for Digital employees at ultranet
looks interesting...

    I'm also with Ultranet - they have a 10-hour plan which works out to
    $8.97 with the Digit discount.  Lately, the Nashua POP has been hard to
    get into in the evening.  Ultranet says they have had additional lines
    on order with NYNEX for seven months...  They have 33.6K modems in
    Nashua and I routinely get 31.2K connects.  Very responsive customer
    service, and, of course, they use our stuff!
    
    				Steve

    I take back .110.  I just got notification today that token.net is
    going belly-up at the end of the week.
    
    So now I'm in the market again...
    
    <Sigh>
    
    Burns
    
    

don't know the timing of this, but ZIPLINK's home page at least says they have
plans to move to NH.  Currently they have access number is LOTS of places
nationally.  Their rater are under $15/month for unlimited access.  Personally,
I don't have any first hand knowledge as my son is the subscriber and his server
feeds the rest of the family...

-mark

Oops. I got this last night.

----------
From: 	Keith Hoffman
Sent: 	Tuesday, January 28, 1997 2:00 PM
To: 	[email protected]

	It is at this time that we regret to inform you that due to 
circumstances beyond our control, Multi-platform Information Systems is 
being shut down.  We regret not being able to provide you with more 
notice, but we are working on a limited time line ourselves.

	The link to the internet backbone with be shut down on Friday 
1/31/97, and the Dial up access will be disconnected on Saturday 2/1/97.

	If you need any assistance downloading any information (web 
pages, data, etc.) to a different site, please contact us, and we will 
assist you as much as possible.

	We regret any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Sincerely

MIS Management Staff

    looks like unless a certain critical mass in terms of subscriber
    numbers is achieved by a local ISP, the chances of them going
    belly up increases exponentially. It's also my understanding 
    that in NH telephone tariffs charged to ISP's are three times
    the same tariffs charged in Mass. This could also be a factor
    in small ISP attrition. It's the survival of the fittest in a 
    market economy.
    
    Bob

    I use Empire.Net out of Nashua.  The plan I've subscribed to is
    $20/month for 50 hours.  One meg of web space is provided, also.  50
    hours and 1 meg don't seem very attractive, I know, but the reason I've
    stuck with them is the dialup speed.  EVERY TIME I have connected to
    the service, it has been at 33.6k.  EVERY TIME!!  This is probably
    because they are directly in Nashua, and not a local number that hops
    to another city.
    
    .02
    
    Jason

    Ultranet's Nashua POP is actually in Nashua.
    
    				Steve

    I have accounts on SERESC of Derry and ICI.NET
    
    SERESC is highly unreliable.  down a lot.  there is no one monitoring
    the server so if it goes down, you have to page a technician.
    The advantage is that they let us play with ther server and do things
    a normal ISP would not.  It doesn't support some javascript stuff 
    such as date.LastModified
    
    ICI.NET has been reliable.  I normally always get through.  I do
    experience a lot of disconnects.  That can be fustrating.  Their
    support is non-existant.  If you are doing anything out of the
    ordinary, don't expect their support.  If you want to add a CGI to the
    server expect a long delay in the submitting process.
    
    

    RE: .108  UltraNet also will provide a nicely put together floppy
    (for either PC's or MAC's), with an Internet starter kit consisting
    of freeware/shareware to get the customer started. They charge
    some small amount for it, but the cost is to cover the cost of the
    floppy and the time to customize it for the user account.
    The starter kit includes a web browser, a news reader, mail utility,
    IRC utility, FTP utility, ping utility, tracert (hopcheck) utility,
    ...don't think I left anything out.
    
    Bob

Here is the table I made for myself researching last night:

ISP		Price	Time	Hookup	Mailboxes	Comments

TIAC		$29	Unl	$20	??		33.6 in Nashua
							DEC Disc=$22
Empire		$20	50	$20	2+$2		33.6 in Nashua

Ultranet	$20	100	0	1		10% DEC disc.
		$10	10	0	1

Netcom		$20	Unl	?	?		28.8 in Nashua

SpryNet		$20	Unl	?	?		33.6 (I think)

ZipLink		$15	Unl	?	1		Not in Nashua Yet

MCI		$20	Unl	?	1

Bit-Net		$20	Unl	0	2+$2		28.8.  Claim X2 in June

Interwebb	$09	10		1
		$20	Unl		2

Micro-net	$19	Unl	?	?		Free 800 number + local
							Nashua number

MV		$20	100	?	2+2$		Some 33.6 in Nashua

    OK, just another datapoint. A new company (http://BIGGER.NET/) has just
    started in the SF Bay Area with LOCAL access from anywhere in the San
    Francisco Bay area (area codes 707, 510, 415, 408) and here's the details:
    
    	1. One time charge of $59.95 which includes fully licensed Netscape
    	2. Currently have access to 180,000 modems concurrently.
    	3. Limited to 200,000 customers. They will NOT sell more than that
    		until their network is expanded. (This is a 1.11:1
    		user-to-modem ratio as
    		opposed to up to 10:1 (and higher) ratios at AOL and the like)
    	4. NEVER ANOTHER WWW CHARGE! Lifetime, 24-hour, 7-day access.
    	5. No hourly limits or restrictions. Stay connect all the time!
    	6. $10 per year add-on if EMAIL address is needed to be maintained.
    
    Anyone try this yet? Almost sounds too good to be true. (There are two
    somewhat conflicting notes: 1) connect via standard PPP and Browsers,
    and 2) most of the fees are actually being paid by advertisers which
    show up in a small box on the screen. How can that be if we use W95-DUN
    and Netscape?)
    
    Mark

FWIW, PC World has an ISP search engine that finds ISP's based on your area
code. The database seems a little stale and the table of summary information
it generates is of limited use, but the table does give links to all the ISP's
that it finds. 

In my case, it found some potential ISP's for my area that I didn't know about
and missed others. YMMV. Set your browser to:

      http://www.pcworld.com/interactive/isps/isps.html

    
    Ultranet also offers unlimited hours for $30. I think they also offer
    the ability to have separate mailboxes for an additional fee.
    
    
    Tom
    ---
    Dictated using DragonDictate.
    

Also check out www.thelist.com for ISP's by area.

    
    Re: Ziplink. Tried their free one-month offer last September. Installed
    their kit and dialled into their site without any problems. But I
    couldn't get to my own account! Spent two nights on the phone with
    their technical folks to no avail - ridiculous. So I stayed with and
    highly recommend Ultranet.
    Also spent three months convincing them to stop billing my Visa
    account, just got the credit a couple of weeks ago. All in all, not a
    happy experience.
    
    Henk
    

Some of these ISP's talk about a "Unix Shell Account" in addition to Email and
Web space.  What is this used for?  Is this where one would put their Pearl/CGI
scripts?  Would one use Telnet to access their "Unix Shell Account"? 

Thanks,
Craig

    Think of it as a DOS window... :-)
    

Ultranet charges $5 !! for each extra mailbox.  That makes it very
uncompetitive for me, especially since you start out with only 1.

Re Shell:  It has its occasional use, but I suspect it is mainly

1) A way for a hacker (in the good sense) to have the complete suite of tools
s/he is used to

2) A way to keep the ISP from having to implement lots of web-based stuff like
password changers, mail forwarders, etc.  IOW they tell you to change your
password by telneting in and giving the passwd command to Unix.

Burns

        Why would you need more than one mailbox ?  Is this for the  rest of
    the family ?  I only have U.S. Mail box for the whole family and it
    works ok.

    Bob

    The same reason people have more than one voicemail box, or answering
    machines with multiple message areas.  Its so Daddy doesn't have to
    sort through all of little Suzie's mail from her playmates at school
    while trying to conduct business correspondance.  And some people might
    even add that there are privacy issues.
    
    Also, if your mail address is "jimbay", its kind of odd to send mail to
    that address, when its actually targeted for someone else.
    
    Of course, even with multiple mail accounts, some ISPs will simply
    route the different addresses to one place, so it all runs together
    anyway.  Check the details.
    
    Re: shell accounts
    
    Shell accounts allow command line access to the server/host/mainframe. 
    If you have an OpenVMS account, and understand the concept of the
    command line prompt, etc., then you have an idea.  It seemed odd to me
    at first to, in a sense, "buy time" on a remote system (my ISP) and
    *not* have access to the command prompt.  But since I don't speak Unix,
    it wouldn't really be of much value anyway.  And since ISPs aren't
    typically in the business of providing services at the shell level,
    like editors, compilers, etc., a shell account doesn't really add much
    value, but does open the system up to mischief.  Ultranet does allow
    certain functions from the shell, but its completely captive, so you
    can do one of about three things, and thats it.
    
    jeb
    

re: .131
>> Why would you need more than one mailbox ?  
So that the missus and kids don't read the letters from my 
girlfriends. <G> Or, due to a hobby/side job that needs more 
secure handling of e-mail.

>> Is this for the  rest of the family ?  I only have U.S. Mail 
>> box for the whole family and it works ok.
Your son drops a letter in a mud puddle, it dries out. He drops 
an e-mail in the bit-bucket and it becomes a bunch of scattered 
electrons.

Due to my extra-curricular activities I have a separate POB and 
phone line and e-mail address. (My girlfriend's name is soccer.)

-----------------------------------------

BICnet (508-772-9500) is another ISP with POPs in Ayer (Devens) and 
Townsend. It is a spin-off of OS Technologies, Inc. (maker of WEBforum) 
which was sold to Spyglass last year. Founder Steve Cloutier is an 
ex-Digit, but no discounts for us.  Anybody use them?

$20 hook-up
$19.95/month - 100 hours, 10 MB storage, 1 POP mailbox, news, ...
$29.95/month - unlimited, 10 MB storage, 2 POP mailboxes, news, ...

Additional mailboxes are $5 setup plus $5/month.

>    <<< Note 2544.128 by POBOXA::KEEFER "Craig PK03-1/R11, DTN:223-4902" >>>
>                  -< What's a "Unix Shell Account" good for? >
>
>Some of these ISP's talk about a "Unix Shell Account" in addition to Email and
>Web space.  What is this used for?  Is this where one would put their Pearl/CGI
>scripts?  Would one use Telnet to access their "Unix Shell Account"? 

Since nobody has mentioned this reason ....

For those of us "laptop impaired", when I'm out of town, if I can get to 
the internet (ie. customer site), I can telnet to my shell account and read 
my mail.  It comes in very handy.

MikeC

 When I hit down-load on mail, it brings *all* the mail in the mailbox down
 to the PC.  Since the messages are no longer on the server, my son can
 no longer get to his mail because it is in my (secure) directory, my wife
 can no longer get to her genealogy mail, because it is in my directory...

 Multiple mail boxes lead to family tranquility!

 Bruce

    <--- RE: .135
    
    Just out of curiosity, what mail utility is being used?
    
    
    Bob

I don't know what he is using, but I just use Microsoft Mail which came with
Internet Explorer.  It works just as Bruce described.

Burns

I have seen "delete from server" as an option on some mailers (Eudora??).  I
don't know for sure if a server can enforce it or not.

Anyway, another piece of info:  Empire.net is waiving the activation fee for
former token.net subscribers.

	They moved the token.net domains to metro200.net in Manchester.
	There is some offer there for token users local to their dialins 
	for [email protected] forwarding for February.  Check out 
	http://www.metro2000.net and their services and rates screen.
	Not that I think that is best.

	I had just selected Token as the best price for the features I 
	needed (ie. local to me, 4 mailboxes, unlimited hours).  I was with 
	them for two weeks and they drop.  I could live with 100 hours I 
	think.  Anyone know the reasons Token dropped out?

	Another local ISP is jlc.com (or is it .net?) in Milford, NH.
	They wanted extra for more mail accounts.

	Any other Digital discounts besides Token and Ultranet out there?
	Other suggestions?

	Dave

>>  Any other Digital discounts besides Token and Ultranet out there?

I believe that TIAC has a 25% discount for Digits. You need some code 
number for them to tell you what the discount is. They aren't local 
to me yet so I have not persued it. If you find out who to get the 
code from or what it is, please let us know.

-nat (joining either Net1Plus or BICnet since being tokenized)

        I use TIAC and have been generally satisfied, but extra POP
        mailboxes cost $10 a month!!  My son and I share the one we
        have, and we use the "leave messages on server" option with
        Eudora.  Eventually the space allocated on the server fills
        up and then we must synchronize our fetches and then allow
        mail to be deleted from the server.  It's a bit of a pain.

        Bob

I hate to say it ... but if you're looking mainly for multiple
mailboxes, what AOL provides may not be that bad.

For the one fee (whether the new flat rate or older measured rate),
you get something like 5 independent mailboxes, whose usernames can be
changed anytime (but the good names tend to be used up already).

AOL's service record is mixed.  AOL itself has only gone down a few
times, so your mailbox is reachable almost 24*365; but connecting to
AOL to download your mail is the problem.  Doing a "flash session"
anytime between 3AM and noon works very well.  Or if you have an ISP
with slip/ppp, you can connect to AOL through them and avoid AOL's
busy signals.

> Or if you have an ISP with slip/ppp, you can connect to AOL through them and
>avoid AOL's busy signals.

how? I use UltraNet (fast but not intuitive) and my wife and kids use AOL (more
security and easy interface) and I wouldn't mind accessing AOL crap from
UltraNet.

roger.

    re .144
    
    Just go into AOL setup (where you set the phone numbers) and create
    a new location called Internet. For network, select TCP/IP. Phone
    number is irrelevant.

thanks

Connecting to America Online from the Internet

Have an AOL account but can't connect? You can login to AOL via 
the Internet with any dial-up account. It's simple!
Follow these steps: 

     Open an AOL browser. (v. 2.5 or later) 
     Select the Setup button 
     Select Edit Location 
     Delete the Phone Numbers 
     Change Modem Speeds to 57,600 
     Change Network settings to TCP/IP 
     Select Save 
     Select O.K. 
     Close AOL browser.

     Establish the connection to your ISP. 
     Logon to AOL as usual.

�   Connecting to America Online from the Internet
    
    Is there a similar set-up for CompuServe per chance?
    
    Martin.

Sure.  In fact, if you're using CS3 (or 2.5 with "default WINSOCK" selected
as the connection method), just connect to your ISP first and then fire
up CompuServe - it will connect via Internet automatically.  You can even
get at CompuServe from inside the Digital firewall by changing the gateway
name to compuserve-gw.pa-x.dec.com.

				Steve

	I find the pegasus freeware mailer to be a very usable tool
	and it allows sharing the same mailbox.  I just make sure that
	my son does not delete or file any mail that is mine and
	I do the same for him.  We make sure to move any mail that
	has been read into other folders so the main folder stays
	clean.  For casual use it's a lot cheeper than paying the
	ISP.