Ok my present internet provider is my local telephone company. At first it was great. No cutoffs in the middle of things, very seldom were the services down. Big change now. It’s nothing for me to be disconnected 7 or 8 times a night. This is frustrating when you are trying to download a program. So I checked out Earthlink (via Mindspring). For 3 months you can get their services for $6.65 a month. Then the regular price of $19.95. Which is what I pay now, no big deal. So I get out my credit card and go through the registration process. I can’t download their software. They don’t have Windows 98 ready to download from the net yet, they mail you a CD or floppy (your choice). You can download Windows 3.1 but not 98. So have I purchased a program I cannot even use until I get the CD? What gives with this? How can they offer a service (you have to give your credit card info before you can continue on the registration) and not be able to provide it until you get a CD? Am I doing something wrong here???
I’ve learned that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it.
You don’t need the CD to connect or browse. It’s just their brand software that lets them compete with AOL by spoonfeeding users what they need.
Call Earthlink dial-up tech support and have them walk you through setting up a DUN (Dial-Up Networking) connection. So long as you have a browser, an email program, and (if you need it) an ftp utility, you’re good to go.
Agreed. All you need to use Earthlink a web browser (e.g. Navigator), an e-mail program (e.g. Eudora), is a newsgroup reader, possibly an FTP program and/or a telnet program, and you’re all set. The only think you need to do is set up earthlink in Dial-Up networking.
yes the total access CD is not necessary. the CD uses dial-up networking to connect. all you would need to use for your DUN connection is your earthlink username & password and some DNS numbers.
the username is ELN/yourusername (the ELN must be entered in capitals). and the password would be whatever you chose when you registered.
you will also need DNS numbers (which can be entered in the TCP/IP settings in the server types properties of your DUN connection).
the primary is: 207.217.126.81
the secondary is: 207.217.77.82
and all the other default DUN settings you can leave as they are.
Yes yes yes! I second (or third) what the rest have said!
EarthLink is super-easy to set up. I don’t use their Total Access CD anymore. I like setting things up myself. (I have written down all the instructions to do it, step-by-step, because I’m a lamebrain.) I’ve set up several computers (including a Mac) myself, with no CD, or anything.
If you call EarthLink, they’ll talk you through the whole thing. They have with me, it’s no big deal.
If you have a Mac, (running OS 8 or higher) it’s super easy to set up - much easier than with Windows. But you probably should still call EarthLink support for help setting up.
And be careful if you do get the Earthlink CD. Your computer will literally be taken over by Earthlink if you run the installation from the CD. I learned that the hard way.
Louie: young guy, possibly a bit green, but smart as paint. - Greg Charles
I would NOT subscribe to any ISP that requires me to install any software.
I am with Earthlink now and I just configured the DUN by myself.
BTW, while Earthlink is OK, it also gets terribly slow at times and will drop the connection at others.
I used to have compuserve (classic, not 2000) which was better quality but their customer people are morons. They billed me $4000 by mistake and I could not get them to straighten it out so I had to find another ISP
