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January 17, 2004
Danger - explosion imminent!
Ever since I started using the internet I have had an AOL account. U fule! Many might exclaim, but, as a technophobe it seemd to be the least difficult option at the time. Now I wish I had thought of something else! Carrier pigeons! Runners with cleft sticks, The Runners of Pern! Even the Dragon Riders! Anything but AOL!
Why the tirade? Simple, ever written something up with care, edited it, and then, when you try to save it (remember I am using a remotely placed server and software package tied to the server), all you get is one "error" message after another and the *expletive deleted* system refuses to complete the connection? That's what I get. All the time! Posting has become a challenge, I have even had to resort to writing in Word, then e-mailing it to another computer, and copying it to the programme I use. (Movabletype for the curious!) As long as I don't go through AOL I seem to have no problems. Go through AOL and everything goes wrong.
Are AOL Help Desk any use. No! Nada! Niet! Nien! I have had different "ChatAgentUK's" give me the same set of b****y instructions for modifying settings, changing the programme and rebooting at four or five stages and the problem just gets worse. I am now convinced that the problem is in their servers and its routing of signals and not in this computer. As a further annoyance, when I dial up, the first number dialled always, and without exception, fails to make the final connection to AOL. I have then to wait until it automatically recycles and dials a second time, at which point, BINGO! But they can't seem to fix that either!
If I intervene and change numbers, or worse tell it to try again - I am sometimes in a hurry - it simply repeats the connection failure!
At this point I am prepared to take any suggestions from anyone with an idea of how to fix this. At this stage it would be a major task to remove the AOL tentacles from my system so I am reluctant to change providers - until I buy a new machine!
Suggestions please! In language a technophobe can understand!
Posted by The Gray Monk at January 17, 2004 09:45 AM
Comments
Hmm...first let me recommend an HTML editor for you to compose your postings. Try BBEdit Lite or another HTML editor which you can probably find at download.com. I used to do my writing in MS Word but found that once I transferred it it sometimes didn't translate well :-)
As far as your connection is concerned, I'm not sure what to recommend there as I've never used AOL (hell) <- smile.
I'll see if I can dig something up on UK ISPs for you.
Posted by: Cindy at January 18, 2004 10:15 PM
If you compose your posts in NotePad or some other application that produces .txt [text] as opposed to .doc [formatted text], then all the extraneous marks are never even generated.
Posted by: MommaBear at January 19, 2004 01:37 AM
what verison of AOL are you using?
Posted by: Matthew at January 19, 2004 02:33 AM
I'm on a standard BT Landline at present, although I could upgrade on this to Broadband. The problem seems to be in the software side of things, as I am now not able to load my own page correctly The pcitures don't load for some reason!), yet try from any other source and it does. I am currently using AOL 5.0 and to upgrade that would destroy my address book and all my bookmarks - hence my reluctance.
Posted by: The Gray Monk at January 19, 2004 06:58 PM
what ever you do don't upgrade to the lastest version of AOL for broadband. My mother has a freind who works for AOL, and conciders 9.0 a live beta test. It killed my mothers computer. Ask if there is a address conversion tool for the upgrade. I think the book mark file is in the AOL directory, so just copy it before you upgrade. But upgrading from 5.0 is not a easy thing, too many internal structual changes.
Posted by: Matthew at January 22, 2004 06:01 AM
Methinks it will be wild horses and possibly news of a blizzard in Hell before I go there!
Posted by: The Gray Monk at January 22, 2004 11:14 PM