Starting up AOL dial-up automatically without asking

Sorry to hear about your problems. Thanks for all the time you have donated so far!

If you wish to give BOINC another chance, there is an account preference for changing the automatic dialing. Go to the main page for the projects, then "your account" and click "general preferences". Under network preferences, there are two options that might affect this. Try setting "Confirm before connecting to Internet?" to yes, and Disconnect when done?" to yes. The first should prevent BOINC from automatically dialing. In case the first one doesn't work for some strange reason, the second setting should hang up when it is finished. After updating your preferences, go to BOINC manager on your computer, and find the "Projects" tab. Select the project you just changed, and then hit the "update" button on the left. That will make sure the changes are applied immediately. Note that if you do not let BOINC automatically dial, then you will have to tell it each and every time, and may get a lot of pop-ups asking to connect.

As a former dial-up user, I would set "network activity suspended" under the activity menu in the BOINC manager. This guaranteed it would not use my line. Then when I was online anyhow, I would change it back to "network activity always available" so I could send back the old results and get new ones. If you want to be extra-safe, you can suspend network activity before leaving home to make sure BOINC doesn't make any calls while you are gone. Just remember to re-enable it or you will run out of work and possibly miss deadlines for work you have completed.

smith