Michael Fang's Weblog Miko's Weblog

Having worked at Sun for almost 10 years officially (and over 10 years with my contracting years included), I have experienced various stages of work from home technology.

Prior to 1998, there were dial-up modems and ISDN connections. I used an US Robotics modem connected to a Sun SparcStation 5 for checking emails and intranet access via telnet and ftp.

Then, Sun offered Covad 128K DSL service connected directly to Sun intranet. I was fortunate to be approved for the service. I had it connected to a Sun Ultra5 and then an Ultra 10 workstation. Because my house was only wired for 2 pairs of copper wires, and this service used up 1 pair, I had to lose 1 of my phone lines for my telephone service.

Then came AT&T (was @Home) Cable modem service in my area. It was a great improvement in connection speed. They also offered digital phone service through the cable line. I switched my local phone service to AT&T digital service and was able to regain 2 phone numbers with their distinctive ring service (but it's actually just 1 phone line with 2 incoming numbers).

At that time, Sun.net was rolled out for work from home use. We were able to check emails and access files and open a telnet tunnel, etc from a web-based client using Netscape browser. I cancelled my Covad DSL to help Sun save some cost, and paid for my own cable modem service.

Then, VPN connection became available. Combined with high speed internet access, I was able to access emails using a Netscape/Mozilla Mail client, and able to access files or telnet through VPN gateway.

Last year, after going through iWork (now OoenWork) assessment, I began my one month Work from home trial. I will talk more about it in a separate blog.