Chris Gehlker wrote:
> I don't know about  that. This is Cox. As far as I can tell,
 > they have a monopoly in the cable modem game. They probably don't
 > care. I'll bet their Windows support is lousy as well.

Let me say first that I've been very pleased with Cox support.
One time I spent an hour on the phone with a support guy who
met me on my level and asked intelligent questions, gave me
interesting little insights into the system, etc.  The problem
was in the setup and in this case worked on Linux but not
Windows, and he took that all in stride.  So they are not
*all* green little girls (quite a picture) stuck on rote
procedure.

As to what protocol is used by their support agent (which I
installed but was always too paranoid to enable), I remember
the installation messages included all sorts of disclaimers
about a Free Software component, and how they were obligated
to provide me with source code on request but could take up
to two years to do so.  I thought that was a nice dodge ...

Which free software?  I don't remember.  I see ssleay32.dll
in the directory, maybe that was it.  So anyway, it appears
that SSH is part of the answer.

As to the employment thing, the only company that will employ me
is the company I did five years of programming for.  They took
me back to do data entry, didn't worry about over-qualification
or freeze me out because of my age.  Doesn't hurt a programmer
to spend some time having to USE the software.  Now they're
letting me escape the rote procedures temporarily, to hack perl
full time, and in return I'm giving them a smoking consulting
rate - well under half what I got there before.  Hopefully that
is just a phase ...  ;-)

Vic