[ravenfan]

Hi everyone! I've been a lurker for about a month or so. Thanks to all the great comments on this board (and others) I have decided on the iBook 800/combo drive model.

I'm not new to Mac as I had a 7500/100 with a Powerlogix ZIF card/G3 233 with 144MB. I liked the 'puter but never really warmed up to OS 9.x. Granted, it might have been the antiquated bus and logic board that made my expirience less-than spectacular.

Anyway, the day I purchased the PC that replaced that Mac, I promised to give OS X a try when it became affordable to do so. And when the current lower-priced iBooks came out, here I am. I'm waiting 'til after the Mac expo to purchase (for finacial as well as I hope they'll make a 900mhz model available for the same price )

I'm working away from home more and more, and I really need a machine to let me communicate and read e-mails and play some simple games now and then. The DVD player will be a huge benefit, too. My question:

I know AOL can be a pain in the buttocks the way it seems to take over one's system. Does AT&T or Earthlink have OS X-friendly access to their services? And if so, are they as wide-spread? It seems like access to AOL is everywhere and might be the best bet for what I'm going to use the 'Book for. Any suggestions?

Sorry for the long-winded first post!

[RMXO]

Originally posted by ravenfan:
Hi everyone! I've been a lurker for about a month or so. Thanks to all the great comments on this board (and others) I have decided on the iBook 800/combo drive model.

I'm not new to Mac as I had a 7500/100 with a Powerlogix ZIF card/G3 233 with 144MB. I liked the 'puter but never really warmed up to OS 9.x. Granted, it might have been the antiquated bus and logic board that made my expirience less-than spectacular.

Anyway, the day I purchased the PC that replaced that Mac, I promised to give OS X a try when it became affordable to do so. And when the current lower-priced iBooks came out, here I am. I'm waiting 'til after the Mac expo to purchase (for finacial as well as I hope they'll make a 900mhz model available for the same price )

I'm working away from home more and more, and I really need a machine to let me communicate and read e-mails and play some simple games now and then. The DVD player will be a huge benefit, too. My question:

I know AOL can be a pain in the buttocks the way it seems to take over one's system. Does AT&T or Earthlink have OS X-friendly access to their services? And if so, are they as wide-spread? It seems like access to AOL is everywhere and might be the best bet for what I'm going to use the 'Book for. Any suggestions?

Sorry for the long-winded first post!

your mac should come with a free month of Earthlink account. i used it while i was traveling the US. cancelled before the free month was over & got an extra 60 days trial for free when i tried to cancel.

or do a search for free internet access like netzero....

[ravenfan]

What is it about Earthlink that drove you away?

[wunderkind]

Appleisp:

nationwide 56K dialup
thousands of local dialup numbers
$14.95 a month

I used them when traveling and I kept them after moving from CA to GA.

[Atef's corpse]

earthlink is fine. I use them when in the States, and I get solid connections and consistent speeds. no complaints here. additionally, you don't have any overhead like with AOL. You can just type in the earthlink number, name and password in your network settings, and then connect with Internet Connect. Works well.

[RMXO]

Originally posted by ravenfan:
What is it about Earthlink that drove you away?

i dont travel out of state anymore. so i dont need them. my DSL provider provides me with free dial-up within their service area, so i use that when needed.

[dagmar]

My isp, syracusenet.net is mac only, and has local numbers in much of the United States. I've been very pleased with them.

[jeffnudi]

I have earthlink DSL at home and when I travel I get 30 free hours of dial-up access. I travel quite a bit for business and have not been anywhere that I cannot get a local access number. Our firm uses internet access through Sprint, and I have gotten local access numbers through my earthlink account when I could not get local Sprint numbers.

[-Q-]

I'm with jeffnundi. I've been using Earthlink DSL at home and on my travels I've not had any problems at all getting a dial-up number to use the 30 hours of dial-up access that comes with the account...

[ixus_123]

Were you refering to just internal travel or international?