[Anemia]

Here's my situation: I just purchased a 12" powerbook that I now intend to take with me everywhere. It's an upgrade from the POS compaq notebook that I had before, that really left me hanging, I never wanted to take that with me anywhere.

I have a number of computers in my home, a cable net connection, wireless for the 3 laptops, etc. My parents live 8 hours away from here, and when I go, I stay for a week at a time usually.

My parent's computing situation is quite different than mine. They have one ARCHAIC compaq desktop that barely functions, and they use AOL.

As I said, I plan on taking my powerbook with me alot. I'd like to be able to get net access while I'm visiting my parents, but do NOT want to use their stone age computer, and I especially do NOT want to use AOL.

So here's the question: is there any way that I can dial up to AOL's servers using, say, Internet Connect, rather than having to download and install that bloated pieice of garbage known as AOL on my powerbook? Is there any other minimalist AOL conduit that I can use to connect? Or am I basically just screwed and I should leave the powerbook home?

Thanks.

[wallinbl]

I think an Airport Base Station will communicate with AOL, so maybe there's hope that something else can.

[winwintoo]

What ISP do you use at home?? Do they have a local dial-up number where your parents are or do they have a 1-800 number that you can dial into while away from home??

My ISP has a 1-800 number that I can dial into from anywhere.

HTH

m

[Chuckit]

To my knowledge, AOL won't let you connect to their servers except with their software. I've tried before and it's never worked for me.

But really, AOL for Mac OS X is not all that bad. It doesn't spew evil all over your system like AOL for OS 9 and Windows does. I can't think of any good reason not to want to install it unless you simply don't have a use for it (and it seems you do).

[Anemia]

I'm on cableone at home, so I'm pretty sure they don't have a dialup number that I can use, although I will check into that.

So if I do install AOL for OS X it's going to be easy to get rid of when I get home, right? Having used AOL for windows, I know the only way to REALLY get rid of it is to format and reinstall, otherwise you'll be battling with the remnants of it for the rest of the computers life.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by Anemia:
So if I do install AOL for OS X it's going to be easy to get rid of when I get home, right?

It should be. To my knowledge, it only actually installs components in three places: /Applications (for the application), ~/Library/Preferences (for the preferences) and /Users/Shared (for shared support files).

I've installed and uninstalled AOL for Mac OS X a few times, and it's never given me any trouble.

[Freeflyer]

Once connected to aol using their software, can you continue to use mail.app and safari or must you use aol's mail features?

This might be handy for the occasional out of town trip, just keep a few of those 1000 free hours of aol disks.

Thanks,

J.