(Send try number 8) I'd suggest you read all of this, but the part you need the most will be the IP numbers at the bottom.

What it says in the subject. I've switched from Comcast@Home to Earthlink DSL. I'm not sure how the speeds match up (since DSL is largely dependent on distance from CO), but they should be comparable. My final assessment of @Home was that it was great, when it worked. However, as many of you know, it frequently did not.

While I was with Comcast@Home, I was breaking fair use policy every second I had any sort of server running, and there was always the mild fear that they would cancel my service if they found out.

Earthlink does not care if I run a server as long as I do not violate any other policies in their user agreement. I still have a mild fear though, because they are very poorly documented (as compared to @Home). I'm not sure if having two computers logged in at once constitutes a violation or not. Guess I'll find out eventually if it is. :shrug:

This new service functions a bit differently. Cable was more like just another Ethernet connection. You plug it in, it works. DSL appears to work more like dialup. You plug it in, and "dial-in." If the server ever restarts on its own (due to some sort of hardware failure), everything will be working, but the connection will not be made until I physically press "dial." So if the server is ever unavailable for a significant amount of time and you don't hear anything from me about it, I probably don't know!

I'm not sure how well hosting a server on this will work. It would seem that IP numbers are dynamically allocated. If you don't understand what that means, for web serving, Dynamic = Bad. If it gets to be too much of a hassle, I'll either setup a gate page that will take you to the server, or I'll grit my teeth and go back to @Home. I'm hoping this won't be necessary.

I've already made the appropriate changes at my DNS, so http://evilpeer.net should start resolving sometime in the next 3 days. Until then, you may need to punch in the IP number to get to the webpage. Merely replace evilpeer.net with 199.174.179.94.

Well, I guess that's it. If you have any questions or if you notice anything odd about the server, mail me.

---Michael Springer ------- End of forwarded message -------