Hi- Marta wrote: > > Folks, here is my question: Recently, when I want to give my e-mail > address, the very same one I use for this account, in filling out a > form - like to the Washington Post, or another company, I have not > already been established with, it tells me my e-mail address is > invalid, I should enter a valid one. I called Insight on this, but they > were of no help. Can anybody out there tell me what might be going on? > Marta > > Marta,
The most important thing I have learned about computers, is that they are basically -->DUMB<---. There is no reason to think that a computer will work flawlessly on everything little thing on the web. Unless you are a webdesigner, or administrator, If you try to figure out everything that goes wrong with your computer, surfing the web, you will drive yourself crazy, (and in turn, everyone around you crazy) for trying to understand hows and whys of all the various ways, of the dumbness of a computers. In the future, Anytime you come across a problem like this? You need to trust yourself more. You need to learn when to prioritize the importance of the importance of problem-solving a computer issue. You need to ask yourself, How big of a problem is this? You need to accept, that when things don't go right with a machine and and learn to recognize, whether the issue, is this a BIG problem or a LITTLE problem? You need to determine, if it worth my time to figure it out? Or next, is it worth paying someone else to help me figure it out and fix it? Or... is there a way to find a workaround which can reach the goal? Those of us, that use machines all day in business, usually go the 3rd route, and look for a workaround, and learn to ignore dumb computer things like this. Looking to discover the cause of an error like this, takes more time than it is worth. However, if you want to be a good internet samaritan about this problem, you can always report the error to the webmaster at that website. Because, ultimately, they are the one you should turn to in a matter like this... Ok, given that, is how I approach situations like this... if you decide that this situation worth your time in understanding? In answer to your question about your email address error, as a designer, off the top of my head, here are some quickie reasons, and possibilities to what went wrong at this page: 1) Maybe the person that coded the webpage or script, made an error in code. 2) Maybe it is a machine interface problem. Maybe you are using a keyboard with a differenet ASCII set than the site needs to have (be sure you are using an American keyboard with a Western set, at an American input page 3) Maybe your java auto-script is adding an additional space or character to the entry area. (Always hand type in these kind of things...) 4) Or Maybe in the past, the website you are dealing with, has had problems with InsightBB.com people. Maybe someone was sending spam email into their service --and the webmaster decided to block that domain from registration at their site. The reality is--- WHO KNOWS! it could be any number of factors contributing to this error. So therefore, you have to determine, if it is a big enough problem for you to spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to figuring out the source of the problem -or finding a workaround to resolve it.. Bottom line, the Good thing is? You have already found a successful workaround (by using another email address) --and in the end this is all that matters! So I suggest you forget the webpage you had problems with, (they might dump it next week as soon as you get it worked out) and instead, go with the flow, and use the other email address you got to work as a user name, instead. Yours, Kay | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be May 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
