Sam,
I agree totally with ya on this one! I myself have had to
ask more than a few AOL buddies to use the Windows Clipboard
and learn "cut 'n paste" when sending email to me, hehe!
The problem is AOL doesn't do much to inform its users of
the proper way to use email, especially sending email to
other Internet users, outside of AOL. AOL started out as
a BBS in Virginia, quickly outgrew itself...even up til a
few years ago it was unusual to successfully login to AOL
on the first dialup. The method I've employed is to simply
take it upon myself to inform AOLers about "how to" attach
files instead of simply "forwarding" the message.
And yes, Arachne has a fit with AOL forwarded emails! I've had to open up
to 10 different "messages" just to get to the original
message. Once again, I just try my best to educate the masses!
A Wiz's work is never done, ya know! Hehe!
I know you sort of dislike Yahoo, but, I try to get AOLers to at least sign
up and try Yahoo mail along with a freestanding email client, such as
FoxMail. That way they have a chance to learn something about "real"
Internet email without the bother of finding another ISP. I still use the
older AOL version 3 for Windows 3.1 primarily now, although on my 486DX4 at
home I do have version 5 32 bit running. A big problem I run into all the
time is versions 4 and later allow AOLers to insert pictures into their
emails! All I get is "Unable to display picture"! So, once again, I ask my
bud to please send the picture as a "file attachment" not as embedded
graphic. But, there's only one of me, and I can do just so much, hehe! If
all of us who have friends/family that use AOL would take a bit of time to
hel them learn to attach files instead of simply forwarding or inserting
into an email, maybe it will get better. AOL email is relatively easy to
use, hence its draw for the novice, but it lacks in several areas as far as
interoperability with other Internet Service Providers.
C U L8R!
Glenn
Wiz
Sam Heywood wrote:
<parts snipped to save bandwidth>
Another problem that the AOL people have is that they
don't seem to know the right way to forward an attachment, such as joke,
which they had received as a forwarded attachment from some other AOL
user
who had received it as a forwarded attachment, a la almost ad infinitim
regression. In order to read the joke I find myself clicking on ikon
after
ikon until I finally get down to the one that reveals the joke. By this
time it isn't even funny anymore. What a waste of bandwidth, and what a
mad hassle! Why do the AOL people have such strange ways of doing
things?
Isn't there something the AOL users could do at their end to fix the
problems? Maybe they could, but they don't know how. I have the feeling
that AOL attracts the most novice and inexperienced computer users.
After
they gain some more knowledge they tend to move on to a better service.
I
don't think that AOL succeeds in retaining many of their customers over
a
very lengthy period. There must be something terribly screwed up with
the
AOL service. Were it not so, they would be able to keep most of their
customers.
Regards,
Sam Heywood
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Glenn Gilbreath, Jr.
Wizard57M
http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/RightWay/wizard57m/index.html
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