If you have a full-time Internet connection such as a cable modem, DSL, or company network, you don't have to do anything special to connect the Internet; you're connected constantly (although you may be required to enter a password each time you go online).
If you have a dial-up modem, however, you should now have a Connection icon in your Start→Settings→Network and Dial-up Connections folder. When you want to go online, you can double-click this icon (Figure 11-2, left). The Connect To dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 11-2, right. Just press Enter, or click Dial, to go online.
It's often more convenient, however, if your PC dials automatically, on cue, whenever you connect to a Web page (with Internet Explorer) or send/receive email (with Outlook Express). You can turn on this feature when you use a dial-up connection the first time; an option to connect automatically appears on the sign-in screen.
If you chose an automatic connection and want to go back to a manual connection (where you're prompted for a phone number of password before connecting), or vice versa, follow these steps:
Right-click the connection icon you want to modify; choose Properties from the shortcut menu.
The Connection Properties dialog box appears.
Click the Options tab.
If you turn on "Display progress while connecting," "Prompt for phone number," or "Prompt for name and password, certificate, etc.," you'll be presented with the Dial-up Connection dialog box each time one of your Internet programs tries to go online. If you turn off all three checkboxes, your PC will dial automatically in those situations, without making a dialog box appear.
Click OK.
You can return to the automatic-connection routine by turning on any of the three boxes described in Step 2.
While you're connected to your ISP, Windows puts an icon in the Taskbar tray, next to the clock (Figure 11-3). Its pop-up balloon tells you the speed of your connection (Figure 11-3, lower left); for a pop-up box bearing even more statistics, point to this Tray icon without clicking. You can watch the Tray icon's tiny dual monitors light up as data is transmitted across the connection.
Figure 11-3. Top: This status box appears when you're online. Bottom: So does this balloon, which tells you the speed of your connection. To disconnect, click Disconnect in the status box, or right-click the Tray icon and choose Disconnect from the shortcut menu that appears (bottom right).
Windows 2000 doesn't hang up the phone line unless you tell it to. If you want the connection to drop after a specified interval, open the Properties for the connection and select Options. In the Redialing Options section, change the "Idle time before hanging up" setting. If you set it for 20 minutes, for example, Windows will automatically break the connection when your system has been idle for 20 minutes—a handy arrangement if you have a tendency to wander off and get distracted while your PC connected.
You can also disconnect manually; just right click the "online" Tray icon and select Disconnect from the shortcut menu, or click Disconnect in the status box that appears when you first connect (Figure 11-3, top).