Ah, summer vacation! No more classes, no more books, no more...Internet access? Wait a minute, how am I going to read my email this summer while I'm on vacation at the Cote d'Azur?
If you're graduating or otherwise planning on not returning to Yale next fall, you should take a look at Leon Marr's article on Internet Service Providers in this issue. If you are returning in the fall, your email account should remain active over the summer, and you'll just need to figure out how to connect to it.
So wait. If I'm leaving Yale, when does my account expire?
Generally, accounts are closed shortly after graduation. Keep an eye on the Recent Announcements section of PantheonHelp (or type Ôhelp' at the minerva% prompt) for an official announcement.
Ok, let's say I'm returning. How do I connect to my account over the summer?
Well, that depends on where you're trying to connect from. If you're staying in New Haven, you have the same dialin or direct network connection options you have during the year. Things get a little trickier if you leave town. If all you're interested in doing is reading your email, (i.e. not Netscape or Eudora or any other graphically-oriented programs) then all you need to be able to do is to run a telnet program so you can connect to the Pantheon machines and run Pine. If you are hooked on Netscape and can't bear to run Lynx (an all-text WWW browser that runs on the Pantheon machines) all summer, then you'll need to use a machine that's either networked directly or has a PPP/SLIP connection.
The cheapest way to do this is to use the facilities of a local institution.If you're going to be affiliated over the summer with an educational institution or a business that has Internet access on machines it will let you use, then you're all set. Just find the telnet program on the networked machine and enter 'minerva.cis.yale.edu' (or your favorite Pantheon machine) as the Host (which is the machine you're "telnetting to"), login, and email to your heart's content. If you want to use your modem to dial in to one of these institutions, you should ask their computer support people what, if any, options are available to you.
If you're not going to be able to use the resources of an institution, you'll have to rely on those of a commercial Internet Services Provider. See Leon Marr's article on page 1 for more information on ISPs, and when you're picking a provider, bear in mind that all you really need is access to a telnet program. You won't need a new email account since you already have one through Yale. If you want to be able to run Netscape or Eudora, make sure you look for a company that provides SLIP or PPP access.
If you have a dialin account with Yale, you can of course continue to use it, even if you leave town. This entails making long-distance phone calls, however, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you're only going to be out of town for a very brief part of the summer.
Where can I go to get more help with all of this networking stuff?
The Internet Information Center maintains an online documentation system at the following World-Wide-Web address:
<http://www.yale.edu/iic>If you don't find the answers to your questions here, please contact the IIC directly. The IIC is located in the Yale Computer Center, 175 Whitney Avenue, and is open Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The telephone number is 432-5116. If you have a question that can be answered via email, feel free to write the Steven Thomas is a consultant at the Internet Information Center (IIC).
Back to April 1996