> > > Hey, > > > > Quoting Ben Lutgens <blutgens at sistina.com>: > > > > > And what praytell would you use a shell service for? Personally I > > > prefer just opening up an xterm and doing my work on a machine I am > > > responsible for, but that's just me. > > > > Sometimes you want to check connectivity to your own systems from a remote > > system. Or at least that's what I needed an external shell for. And sometimes that's the only access you have until you get your linux box/domain/etc fully up and running ;) Personally I use my (paid) shell account for: mail, webdesign, taking notes in classes, compiling class projects under *nix environment [note - the classes I'm taking are through St. Paul Tech - I wasn't given *nix shell access through school since they were predominantly teaching via Visual C++/Borland JBuilder/etc], testing for connectivity/debugging issues from outside our LAN from work. *shrug* it's more than useful - it's the way I do a LOT of stuff, it's used on a daily basis. and it's nicely portable :) I catch a lot of flack from one of my housemates because I prefer text based computing to GUI based stuff for normal day to day stuff. He feels I should come out of the stone age and wake up to technology *laugh* - *shrug* I use GUI stuff for the most part as well, but for mail, for irc, for little pidly stuff, I'd rather use a command prompt. Shell access gives me that, and when I can get dyndns set up with my domain name, and get our network in gear at home, then I won't need the paid account, I'll be able to use my home box. though as someone else pointed out, having a shell from outside would be beneficial for connectivity testing. Take care, Liz -- Imagination is intelligence having fun... e-mail: kethry at winternet.com URL: http://WWW.winternet.com/~kethry/index.html