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Subject:Re: Telecommuting From:Caryn Rizell <CARYN_RIZELL -at- HP-ROSEVILLE-OM2 -dot- OM -dot- HP -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 21 Sep 1995 08:16:22 -0700
Robert:
I was especially interested in your message because of where you live. I
grew up in Salem and went to school in Eugene and worked in Eugene for many
years. Have you been doing telecommuting long? What kind of writing are
you doing? Someday I would like to get back to Oregon, but I'm never quite
sure what kind of market there is for tech writers, especially software
writing.
You must feel really lucky to be able to live where you do and have a job
you like.
>I'd like to hear about software you telecommuters use to telecommute.
>I mostly use pcAnywhere to transfer files by modem, because that's
>what my clients have. With this software, I can dial into my
>client's network and access files as if I were in the office,
>although I don't usually work in applications remotely because it
>ties up the phone line and can crash the software. pcAnywhere works
>OK for the most part, but I have had problems from time to time.
>What's your experience?
I'm now telecommuting from a farmhouse in Blodgett, Oregon (a
town where the gas station, the shopping center, and the post
office are all represented by a single building: a country store
with the post office in the corner).
I found (not to my surprise) that having two phone lines is essential.
While some rural areas are in the Dark Ages, I have three pairs of
phone wires running to my house, and only need two of them right
now, for my two phone lines.
Technologically, my computer umbilical to WEITEK, where I'm working
part-time, is a network "box" -- a Telebit PN-1 box. This is
a device with a network connection on one end and a telephone
connection on the other. It dials up remote sites when you try
to send network packets to them, and works with both IPX (Novell),
and TCP/IP (real network) protocols.
So, in practice, my motley collection of hardware (a DOS PC and a
UNIX workstation) can talk to WEITEK's entire network of PC's,
workstations, printers, and what have you.
I far prefer stand-alone hardware (external modems, stand-alone
network boxes, stand-alone fax machines) to their internal
counterparts. My PC is the least reliable machine I own, what
with dueling TSR's and all, and I don't like to do anything with
it that demands high availability.
