Re: Finally getting DSL

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 03:55:30 -0400, erimess wrote:

It used to be the money. But it's cheaper now. And in fact, AT&T is
always having specials that put it as cheap as my dial-up.

So then I started seriously considering it, but SBC bought them out,
and I hate them and I heard it was turning to Yahoo... so I didn't
bother. My brother got it about a year ago and I let him be the
guinea pig. I wasn't thrilled about the Yahoo email. His email says
sbcglobal, but it's Yahoo.

If you get tired of changing emails, you could go the gmail route like me.
They let you use any pop3 compliant email client if you want and they do
have very good spam filters.

Now it looks as though they've either just made the old AT&T available
again, or possibly even done away with the Yahoo crap, not sure. But,
I was still concerned about losing my web hosting. No matter where I
looked, I could not find this information, nor did anyone I call know
the answer. That is, assuming I could ever convince them that I
wasn't talking about the email storage or "my home page" that's just a
customizable AT&T home page. (I customized the weather.) So I've been
around with this for months now.

Finally got someone today who actually knew what web hosting was, and
even knew what's been available with my dial up. We were on the phone
at least an hour trying to straighten out what's going to happen if I
go to the DSL.

dslreports.com aka broadbandreports.com host some very informative forums
if you have further questions of this type.

I was told long ago we could now keep our email. Even AOL customers
can keep their email. And it's not just the address. I can still go
to the same URL and everything will be the same. And I finally got
told today that new DSL customers have to pay extra for web hosting,
but that I was grandfathered into it from the dial up and could keep
it. (Until they change it, of course.)

I have to do everything right though. I have to start with a *new*
ID, and then not merge it with my dial up, cause that'll screw it all
up. (Well, first I have to wait on the modem and install it. :-))
Then I have to call the dial-up service and have them transfer all my
old stuff from the dial-up account to the DSL account. So I'll
essentially be keeping everything I had, including the web pages. The
only thing that changes is how I'm connecting. Assuming she's right.
She also talked to a guy at the dial-up service and he confirmed this
and I made him guarantee me this is correct, and I'm going to beat him
up if he's wrong. (I'll be really ticked if this doesn't work like
they say, so I admit much leariness.)

I don't know if I actually have to have set up a web site for the six
available IDs but I'm currently using two. My brother suggested I
hurry up and create 4 more and then set up the web hosting for each.
:-)

I'm supposed to have the modem Tuesday and the service will start
Wednesday. (Oh, just as two weeks of a hectic schedule starts when I
won't want to be messing with modems and changing stuff. Especially
since part of the hectic schedule is my work online. That's a bit
chancy.)

So... I do have one question. (For now.) Is there some extra
security precautions I should be taking here? I'm intending to
disconnect at least every night, maybe more often cause there's some
stuff I just don't like doing while online. And speak laymanese
please. :-)

Keep your OS patched. Black Tuesday (the 2nd Tuesday) of every month is
when MS issue patches if you don't keep AutoUpdates enabled. You can
manually go and download them then.

Keep the XP firewall enabled or, better yet, install a 3rd party firewall
with more features. I'm still using Kerio 2.15.

Keep your AV and Spyware programs updated. If you don't set them up to be
resident all the time, implement some schedule or protocol so everything
you download gets scanned. If you are unsure about something, you can
always submit it to virustotal.com

Quit using IE and OE altogether. No excuses! Use Firefox or Opera. I
like to use NoScript and Adblock Plus with my Firefox and only enable
scripting for sites I'm very certain don't contain nasties.

BTW, I only got the slowest speed cause it's the same price as my dial
up. It's still (a max of) like 15 times as fast. For the same price
that still seems a good deal. I'll have to see if I still find
anything annoying and I have no contract so I can change it any time.
And the service thingamagig is just over on the next corner, which I'm
*very* close to.

I'll tell the pr0n sites to prepare for your onslaught!
--
The Polychromic Dragon of the -=={UDIC}==-
http://macecil.googlepages.com/index.htm
http://macecil.googlepages.com/safehex.htm
.

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