Like thats an excuse for being rude. You insult someone for overlooking your serial connection, or suggesting a simple 5$ NIC card (you can certainly get 10mb cards that cheap if you don’t demand auto-switching which you won’t need on a peer to peer network. Hell I get that kinda’ crap free when people upgrade), and then you fail to mention your O/S, or what kind of PPP or TCP you have if you are running a Mac.
Then you overlook all the online sources of information you have but refuse to overlook a suggestion which may not apply, but certainly does you no harm and was obviously intended to assist. Too lazy to look it up, too rude to appreciate the atempt of someone to assist, and too cheap to do what most lazy and rude people have to do, pay someone like me to tolerate you. Half the uber geeks on this board have bins of various parts in their homes and will (and have) helped other Dopers out with such parts (hell a bunch of people here have repeatedly raised money for dopers and friends of dopers in distress), perhaps were you not rude someone like me who has literally crates full of parts would have sent you all the gear you would ever need free of charge just for the good karma but I don’t see that happening now. I’m surprised someone offered the information you needed but then most people are more forgiving of casual crass behavior.