Remote Node

[tantone]

I have been looking into using my computer at home to dial in to with another computer to check my e-mail. I have a cable modem and there is no way to remotely check my e-mail without already having a connection to the internet. I heard there were two ways to do this. I could use a remote node or remote control (such as PCAnywhere). I like the remote node idea much better, although it appears that PCAnywhere would be a bit easier.
I was told I'd have to instal an RAS server onto the home computer, and I would also need a proxy server (Wingate was recommended). I understand that Wingate is free, but I have no clue what an RAS server is, nor do I know where to get one, or even if it's free. I'm also concerned that, even if I found both of them and installed them, I wouldn't know what to do once I have them.

If someone could possibly give me quite a bit of detail to aid in my quest here, it would be very appreciated. Please feel free to e-mail me with your responses. Thank you.

[DManly]

RAS in windows world jargon reffers to a service of NT (3.51 or 4) You have to be running it to allow for Remote Access Server (RAS)

Currently at home I am running three win98 and a (using 192.168.0.1 and up IP address) with a NT4 server running as a PDA. (works so much better than my previous peer to peer setup) I am using Avirt (www.avirt.com) proxy server software on one of the win98 computers. Works much better than some of the other modem sharing programs as it provides a firewall to my home net since I am using one of the IP address ranges set aside for intranet usage only. Wondering why I am not using NT service RAS? Well, it seems that there is a dearth of 56k modems available that fully support NT RAS.

This is just what works for me.. good luck