I have an America Online account so that I can check to ensure that the email client operates properly with various mailing lists I maintain.
Yesterday I got a report from a user that they were having difficulty using AOL’s latest version, the much-touted “version 7.0,” with one of our sites, so I upgraded my own computer to this version so I could try to duplicate their woes.
This was a mistake.
Upgrading (if you can call it that) to this version of AOL installed all manner of crap on my computer, rendered Windows file sharing inoperable, and caused my Internet Explorer to think that it should dial out to AOL every time I clicked on a link (even though I’d configured AOL to know about my broadband connection).
I uninstalled everything to do with AOL to try and solve the problem, and this solved everything but the file sharing problem, which was only solved once I disabled the faux network adapter that AOL installs to let you use their service over an existing Internet connection.
Beware.
I was talking to the bank last week about a mortgage and they informed me that if I buy a house soon, I would get three months of free AOL-Canada! This reminds of the 'buy a car - get a free tank of gas' deals. I'd rather they said Buy now and get 0.15% off!. I was actually embarassed for the bank employee (and myself).
POSTED MAY 1, 2002 AT 11:13 AST BY Steven Garrity (steven@actsofvolition.com)
Jodi has a credit card from Royal Bank and they have sent us three 'free three month trial' CD-ROMs from AOL. AOL is the devil.
POSTED MAY 1, 2002 AT 13:33 AST BY Johnny (JOHN@RUKAVINA.NET)
AOL is pernicious and evil. We had an AOL account and they set everything up so that it is geared to within AOL. "Send photoes to your friends - it's easy, just post them on AOL and then have all your friends join AOL to see them." yeah, right.
POSTED MAY 2, 2002 AT 16:50 AST BY STEPHEN