[SC.LUG] ISPs

[Matthew Tolley]

Smashing,


Thanks to Neil and Martyn for answering my question.

Some of you guys questioned my question, but I did ask for a reason...

I help people reduce their bills. In my business I have customers who
currently use Windows and who want to keep their email addresses with
Freeserve (say). There's a great deal of perceived hassle in changing,
especially if you're in business and you've put our a lot of marketing with
your email address on it.

Previously, I was able to reduce my customers' internet costs by
transferring them to a cheaper ISP service (1p per minute all day every
day), while configuring their PCs to send & receive messages using
Freeserve's server (sneaky, eh?). They also get an improvement, surprisingly
enough, in speed and reliability of connection (let's face it, some of the
bigger ISPs aren't so hot). Now I can also wean my customers off the dreaded
Windows by suggesting Linux or Lindows as an OS (for the ones who want
reliability and speed), and they can continue to keep their Freeserve
address AND use a cheaper dial-up service! Everyone wins (except Bill Gates,
and I don't think he's short of a bob or two).

In time, of course, they will transfer ISPs, but that's a different story...

I know Freeserve et al. won't provide tech support, but I can help them with
much of that. I just wanted to know that it was technically possible.

Thanks again gang,




Matthew




-----Original Message-----
From: sc-admin@mailman.lug.org.uk [mailto:sc-admin@mailman.lug.org.uk]On
Behalf Of Neil Lucock
Sent: 08 August 2003 17:27
To: sc@mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [SC.LUG] ISPs


On Sunday 06 Jan 1980 12:03 pm, Matthew Tolley wrote:
> Hello you friendly bunch,
>
>
> Matthew here with another simple, if brainless, question...
>
> If I have an existing account with an ISP such as Freeserve or Go-plus, it
> can be accessed from a Windows PC simply by dialling the right number and
> entering the correct username and password.
>
> Can I do exactly the same from a Linux PC?
>
> These ISPs claim they don't support non-Windows OSs (except MacOS in some
> cases) but since I can set up a web account with them online can I not
also
> dial in using kppp or similar?
Dead easy. Do the Freeserve "make a new account" process on-line (hint,
you'll
need an existing account to do it) and when it tells you that they are going
to download a file, save it. It's a windows .inf file (e.g. anytime.inf), so
just change the ending to .txt and open it in a text editor (notepad), print
it out. There's a lot of windows configuration stuff that brands I.E. so you
might want to delete to save some ink, but you can just plug the values
straight in to KPPP/Kmail/Knode or whatever you use.
I used Linux with  Freeserve until this year. Don't expect any technical
support though, Freeserve are not penguin-friendly.
regards,
Neil

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