>Hi.
>I need to access data over a modem. Is this feasible. Which product should I use. I have the foxpro2.6 app written so that it can reside on the client and access the data on the server. Works great over a network but I one user needs to access remotely. Has anyone done this and what are the best 3rd party products to use.
>

Unless the data size is extremely small, I wouldn't advise trying to pass the data over a modem-speed connection as if it were a LAN connection. Instead, I'd look at executing the application on a machine at the remote site under the control of a remote control application such as PCAnyWhere or LapLink.

If you use the modem to access the database remotely as a network link, you'll be moving the data across the modem link in its entirety. Your application executes on your local PC, and the remote PC serves as a link to the data source. If you want to perform an unoptimized query or copy operation of a 1MB data file, you'll be moving 1MB of data across the modem to examine the data, and if the target file is also on the remote environment, the selected data records would then have to be moved back. At 3-4K/sec on a 33.6Kbps modem link, this will take a long time - perhaps on the order of 100 times longer than the same operation performed over an EtherNet LAN. if you connect at a slower rate, the performance will obviously suffer.

With remote control software, the query is executed on a PC on the remote site (the host) at the speed of the LAN. Your program executes on the remote PC, which accesses the data at LAN speed rather than modem speed. The remote control software passes screens and keystrokes across the modem link, rather than the entire data file, a much smaller volume of data.

I use PCAnyWhere32 for remote control applications. It works well with Win3.x, Win95 and NT for both client and host applications; the product is really targeted at the Win95/NT environment; features are scaled back considerably with Win3.x clients and hosts, but the capability for using the older operating system does exist. I've also used it in both host and client modes with the Win98 beta with no problem.

Ed