Yeah it's an easy way to check if a port is responding, and you can actually drive some protocols using telnet. Eg: `telnet some.http.addr 80` and then type in

Yeah it's an easy way to check if a port is responding, and you can actually drive some protocols using telnet. Eg: `telnet some.http.addr 80` and then type in `GET /index.html HTTP/1.0` and hit enter twice. You can use it to test SMTP servers too.