Basically, all BGDialer does is let you make AOL dial in the background, which allows you to switch to other programs and do actual work instead of sitting there staring at the connection dialog box, feeling brain cells escaping through your eyeballs. Simple, small (like 3K; the Read Me file is bigger), and crashproof..what more could you want? Oh, yeah, it's also absolutely FREE!
Works with AOL version 3.0 and ought to work with other versions as well.