Rick, > have you tried to telnet to port 3306 of the machine where the mysql > server is located, from your home machine? if so, what do you get? > If you're successful you'll get a connect bit that includes a string > that will show your mysql server version number. if you don't have > mysql access you'll likely see a mysqld reject of some nature. if > there's a network issue you'll just get a hang or you could get an > unreachable error. Yup, it works: $ telnet 173.13.167.209 3306 Trying 173.13.167.209... Connected to mail.mailnewsrss.com. Escape character is '^]'. 4 5.0.77aWqQ!OMq,slG]|xft5L[fConnection closed by foreign host.