Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition

Internet Connect

Internet Connect is primarily designed for people who connect to the Internet via dial-up modem. Here’s what you can accomplish with Internet Connect:

• Click Connect to dial out using your current modem settings.

• Once you’re hooked up, check the status display to confirm whether your modem successfully connected to your ISP—or if you’ve been disconnected.

• You also see your connection speed , to find out if you’re really connected at 56 K (ha!).

• A timer shows how long you’ve been connected.

• Internet Connect keeps a neat log of your connection activity (choose Window→ Connection Log). Reading this log is about as exciting as reading random entries from the White Pages. Nonetheless, if you’re having serious connection problems, it can be a useful troubleshooting tool.

• The “Show modem status in menu bar” checkbox lets you use a menu bar icon to dial and observe your connections—without using Internet Connect at all.

Of course, even then, you don’t really need Internet Connect to get online. If your dial-up settings are configured correctly (see Section 18.2.2), your Mac will automatically dial whenever you launch a program that requires one (such as Internet Explorer).

In Mac OS X 10.3, Apple rolled a few other miscellaneous Internet connection functions into Internet Connect. For example:

• Internet Connect is also your gateway to Virtual Private Networking, a feature that lets you tunnel into corporate networks from the road—see Section 21.5.

• You can use Internet Connect to ...