There are a number of useful little add-ons to MacPPP that can make life easier for you. Some of the simplify the process of connecting and disconnecting from the Internet (which is a bit of a pain normally, since you must open the Config PPP control panel to disconnect, even if you've used the auto-connect feature to connect). Others help you track how much time you spend online, which is important if you're paying by the minute or for a long distance call. Unless I mention otherwise, all the utilities in the section below are at the following URL:
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/tcp/
This postcardware utility from Richard Buckle makes it easier for MacPPP users to connect and disconnect. Control PPP is a Control Strip module that enables you to connect and disconnect from the Control Strip, and to open the MacTCP and Config PPP control panels. It also indicates if MacPPP is open or not, which is handy for PowerBook users with internal modems. Although written for Control Strip, Control PPP also works with some limitations with Desktop Strip, which lets desktop Macs use Control Strip modules, and probably with a similar commercial utility called DragStrip.
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/tcp/
MacPPP Control from Mark Alldritt is an AppleScript Addition that enables you to perform limited AppleScript scripting on MacPPP. You can open and close the MacPPP connection and test whether or not the connection is open or closed. MacPPP Control comes with two sample scripts that I used for a long time to connect and disconnect. Dennis Whiteman has written a much more involved script called Toggle PPP that toggles MacPPP between open and closed connections and writes a tab-delimited log detailing the start, stop, and cumulative times relating to your connection. If you do much with AppleScript and use MacPPP, you should definitely check out these utilities.
Richard Buckle's postcardware MacPPP QuicKeys 3.0 and PPPquencer are extensions to CE Software's QuicKeys macro utility and to the shareware macro utility KeyQuencer. These extensions help QuicKeys and MacPPP communicate, enabling you to control MacPPP from within QuicKeys or KeyQuencer. They enable you to open and close MacPPP, choosing a hard or a soft close when you close it, trigger other macros based on whether or not MacPPP is open or closed, and finally jump a specified number of steps forward or backward in a QuicKeys sequence macro. If you use QuicKeys or KeyQuencer and MacPPP, you may want to check out these extensions.
MacPPP Timer is a small utility application from Eric Preston that helps you keep track of how much time you spend connected to your PPP account. You must launch it manually, but because you can open a MacPPP session from within MacPPP Timer, that's not a serious hardship. Once active, MacPPP Timer automatically displays the amount of time you're connected for that session and for a cumulative amount of time (a month is the default, based on most providers' billing schemes). If you're billed by the hour and want to keep an eye on your charges, check out this program.
Those who don't like working with the Config PPP control panel might want to check out Rob Friefeld's free PPPop, which is a small application that serves as a front end to MacPPP. Like other utilities for controlling MacPPP, PPPop enables you to connect or disconnect, open the MacTCP and Config PPP control panels, and see the status of your connection at a glance. The coolest feature of PPPop is that it plays sounds from a PPPop Sounds file located in the same folder. PPPop comes with a set of sounds, and you can create your own and replace the standard sounds if you like.
PPPReport is a free control panel from Eric de la Musse that tracks how long you spend connected via MacPPP, writing the results to a log file, of which PPPSummarize, a free Excel 5.0 worksheet from Mary Lindower, can then provide a day-by-day, month-by-month summary. One neat feature of PPPReport is that it can log specific Internet port numbers, which means that you could figure out how much time you spend downloading via FTP, or reading news, or anything on the Internet that is connected with a specific port number. Both files are in:
Although I recommend that you start with MacPPP, especially since it is included on the ISKM disk, there are two other implementations of PPP (soon to be three when MacSLIP 3.0 comes out with its PPP support) that may interest you for one reason or another. You don't need to bother even investigating these programs if MacPPP works perfectly for you, as it does for most people.
MacPPP 2.1SD is a hacked version of MacPPP that has only one difference from the standard MacPPP 2.0.1. As you may have noticed, MacPPP 2.0.1's top port speed setting is 57,600 bps, which is the top speed of the serial ports on all Macs other than the 660AV, 840AV, and the Power Macs. 57,600 also is a good bit faster than any existing modem, so the problem only surfaces when using ISDN, which (depending on the details) runs at either 64,000 bps or 128,000 bps, quite a lot faster than MacPPP 2.0.1 supports. Thus, MacPPP 2.1SD (SD stands for Steve Dagley, the programmer who created it and who can be reached at sdagley@zeno.fit.edu) adds port speeds of 115,000 bps and 230,000 bps. MacPPP 2.1SD does not work with the GeoPort Telecom Adapter pod nor the Creative Solutions Hustler serial card, and it conflicts with the Axion serial switch.
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/tisk/tcp/
InterCon's InterPPP is the most well-known of the commercial PPP clients, and as far as I know, like the others (there are versions from Tribe and Pacer Software as well) are based on the same code from a company called FCR. InterPPP's main advantage over MacPPP is that it can carry AppleTalk over the PPP connection. Of course, your host machine must speak AppleTalk as well as TCP/IP and make useful AppleTalk services available for this to be of any utility. In testing, I had trouble getting InterPPP to work with my PPP server, perhaps in part because InterPPP relies on CCL scripts (it provides a simple text editor for editing them, which is nice) that live in your Extensions folder for configuring the modem. I, and many users to judge from reports, far prefer a simple dialog approach instead. You can purchase InterPPP from InterCon Systems for $99. For more information, contact InterCon electronically at sales@intercon.com, or at 703-709-5500; 703-709-5555 (fax).
Another, less common method of making a MacTCP-based connection, is via Apple Remote Access, or ARA. ARA is commercial software from Apple that enables you to make a modem connection to another Mac appear as though you had made that via LocalTalk or Ethernet (only slower, of course). ARA comes bundled with many models of the PowerBook, and is also available separately from Apple dealers and mail order vendors; the street price is about $60 for the ARA 2.0 Client software. I include ARA in this chapter because future versions are slated to use PPP internally to make the connection, and the use of ARA to access the Internet isn't currently common enough among Internet access providers to justify an entire chapter.
The advantages of using ARA over MacPPP are that ARA is generally easy to configure, it's supported by Apple and by most modem vendors, and of course, once you make the connection, you have AppleTalk services as well as TCP services. At least two Internet providers, Open Door Networks in Oregon (info@opendoor.com, 503-482-3181 via ARA) and the non-profit knoware in the Netherlands use ARA as their primary connection method for Macintosh users. More commonly, though, large organizations with dedicated Internet access on their networks provide ARA dialup facilities and also support MacTCP-based Internet access over those connections.
I haven't personally used ARA to access the Internet, although many people have gotten it to work fine using the network at their organization and a Mac at home. If you work with a commercial provider like Open Door Networks, most of the following details won't matter for you, since Open Door Networks will have configured everything for you such that you only need to double-click on a connection document (see figure 18.6) or alias file to establish the connection. (Thanks to Alan Oppenheimer for much of this information.)
Figure 18.6: ARA Connection window.
To use ARA to connect to the Internet, you need a Macintosh with a fast modem, the ARA client, and MacTCP at home. At work you need a Macintosh running the ARA server (or a dedicated piece of hardware from a company like Shiva that provides only ARA dialup facilities), another fast modem, and most importantly, a network link through an IP gateway (like the Apple IP Gateway or the Shiva FastPath) -- the gateway connects the ARA server's AppleTalk network to Ethernet and then out to the Internet. So, if you can't use the Mac at work with MacTCP applications to access the Internet, you won't be able to do so via ARA, either.
Second, you need a unique IP address which will be assigned to your home Macintosh, either permanently or by the server each time you dial in, because using a Mac on the Internet via ARA is just like using a Mac on the Internet in any other way. The person in charge of your ARA server or your IP gateway will have to set up this IP address for you.
Once you have those two things done, all you may need to do is bring up the ARA connection to have your Mac at home fully connected to the Internet. If you've never configured MacTCP before, it is probably already configured correctly for a connection over ARA. Just to be sure, however, follow these instructions, noting that there are a few differences between configuring MacTCP for use with PPP or SLIP.
This ensures that traffic from your Mac will go through the gateway that handles the encapsulation of packets for Ethernet. Because your Mac at home isn't really on Ethernet, its packets will be ignored unless you choose a zone in which an IP gateway lives.
Once you've properly configured MacTCP the first time, you should be able to establish an ARA connection to work any time thereafter. You'll then be able to use the MacTCP-based applications just as though you were directly connected or were using SLIP or PPP to make your connection.
That pretty much covers MacPPP and the various different add-ons and other implementations of PPP that you're likely to run into. For the most part, the answer to the question of what to try first is MacPPP since it's free and it's included on the disk.
Some people are limited to SLIP accounts though, and for that population, the next chapter will be of more interest.