Force of habit makes me do something that almost no one I know still does. I do virtually everything on the Internet through AOL. Others scoff at me and throw around browser names that mean nothing to me, but Tim in particular (Mr. Mac user), who has to listen to me shriek each time AOL betrays me in some heinous way, always says, “If you won’t try anything else, at LEAST use Explorer and stop being tormented by AOL.”
And I do try, but it’s hard to stop after ten years. I KNOW AOL now offers free use of their e-mail and a lot of the other services I access. I KNOW I could have AIM up and still stalk communicate with people no matter what web browser or Internet provider I use, but I just like having AOL open so I can keep my eye on my mail and my buddy list. All my favorite places bookmarks are set up on AOL, and it’s just too much freaking trouble to start over elsewhere.
However… after many hours of work through the night on a web site, when I was checking all my pages to make sure everything was loading and linking correctly, and I suddenly started getting messages like, “This web site does not exist,” and pictures weren’t loading, I thought it might be best to reach for a credit card and book a trip somewhere, anywhere, yes, EVEN FLYING, to escape the wrath of Tim. I was sure I’d destroyed all his work by tweaking things here and there, creating a page or two, teaching myself some new things. And the idea of telling him that…
You know, Tim is a really great human being, and I’m sure he’d have forgiven me. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to. Because about ten minutes into my panic attack, AOL crashed on me. And I thought, Hmmmm. Maybe it’s not my work. Maybe I didn’t destroy everything Tim (and Timmy before him) ever did. Maybe it’s AOL.
So I rebooted my computer, went to Explorer, and everything worked like a charm.
I don’t have to overcome my fear of flying. Just my AOL habit.
Ahh, but have you tried AOL Openride? I love it. LOVE IT!
Old habits are hard to change, routine is comforting, so yay to you for switching.
I was an Explorer guy for years, but have been loyal to Mozilla for years now…less bugs, etc…
Mozilla FireFox here.
My husband, being the computer Senior Systems Engineer, sneers at AOL.
My personal experience with it wasn’t good. They over charged me, and then it just wasn’t working well for me.
My first move to sanity was getting an iMac G5, it’s about three years old and has yet to show its age. All my other computers operated on windows and by the third year you could hear the wheels squeaking to a halt. Next, I learned to use Safari and Firefox, I am not a great fan of Explorer but I have used it as well. Giving up AOL was easier than you would imagine. I cleaned up my buddy lists which now have maybe 5 people that I talk to on a regular basis and 5 more that I keep in touch with on occasion. I don’t use chat rooms, I don’t like icons and sounds other than when I watch something specific or listen to my music. In addition, AOL is not Mac friendly so I had to abandon the website I kept for my class. I have almost no reason to log on except to open the occasional mail. Most of my real mail comes to my Yahoo account anyway. I keep AOL for the kids who like the icons and background and weird sounds when people log on and off, and away messages and whatnots. They are still using windows because the programs their schools use require windows on occasion. But this will soon pass as well.
Life without AOL means never crashing, never having slow uploads, never being unable to open websites because of a failure to communicate with some host, and never getting instant messages from BigMuscles4U (although I do think about him on occasion, I am human after all)! Try it, you will like it!
Michelle
Oh, yuck! I get so sick and tired of having to constantly download new software; deal with the fear that I might lose data that’s important to me if do something wrong, or if the software or hardware goes kaflooey. You know that when Margot Kidder went into the mental illness spiral a few years ago, apparently what triggered it was her laptop crashing, and her thinking that she had lost all this work she had done on her autobiography, or something like that. I’m guessing she had problems to start with, but apparently the anguish she felt over this caused her to go into a tailspin. Experts were able to retrieve her data, but obviously she didn’t need to deal with something like that!
My Dear, they don’t call it AO-HELL for nothing.
Tim is a very smart fellow…perhaps YOU should get a mac! (I use a PC but have considered a Mac-mini)
Dropping AOL was the best 22 minutes I’ve ever spent on the phone. Really, there’s nothing AOL can give you that you can’t get more easily elsewhere. You keep AIM, you can still have chat rooms, downloads, Vl4GRA spam and more…with fewer crashes and no icky unexpected software downloads.
“The wrath of Tim” makes me sound like Khan.
I think you’ve been providing clues that indicate a connection all along. Did you notice Khan’s last name?
I use explorer, Jeff uses Mozilla Firefox. I should probably switch over to that, he’s more the computer expert than I am.
My husband still insists that he has to use AOL, but I finally got him down to the free version when that came up in September. We have 4 user names on the computer, so that no one can mess with anyone else’s stuff, and so I can password protect the kids sections, so they can’t go on if they piss me off. Rod always complains that he has so many computer problems, but those of us who don’t open AOL never have any issues. He doesn’t believe me that he would probably have a lot fewer problems if he would use explorer or firefox.