On Thursday 29 April 2004 21.47, I wrote that I was having trouble getting recognised by my ISP. I am ashamed to say that the problem turned out to be trivial and that with a little more effort I would have solved it sooner. Also, as Anders Johansson said, I could have provided a bit more information. I have been connected to my ISP, a public company not requiring any special software to do so, trouble free, for about 10 years. However, I forgot that about 6 months ago they changed user names, in my case from "kkeith" to "kkeith@iconz.co.nz". So I was trying to log on with the wrong user name !!! Many thanks to those who suggested pointers I might follow up, and I did improve my understanding by doing so, and by reading the mail about some of the ramifications of being connected. keith