Reply #153: Fredda, you understand that the single limitation of "dial-out" modems...

[ianbruce]

... is that they must initiate the communication with the outside world. After a connection is established, anything goes. I'm not much of a programmer, but I could write a simple AppleScript, running in the background, that dials-up my ISP at regular intervals, checks my email, and logs off.

Imagine having a standard phone with the ringer disabled -- you can still call and chat with anyone you like, pass information back and forth... whatever.

Also, if you friends are familier with your "ringer" problem, they'll know that when you're on the phone they can get your attention via call-waiting, and that you'd be more than happy to take their call.

In the case of computers -- where you've got a fixed IP or block-range address -- I could simple "ping" those addresses until I saw that it went online.

This is assuming it didn't just call me directly.