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djjava · May 5, 2003, 09:54 PM

I am a new england subscriber to AT&T broadband, I have the distinct please of dealing with the AT&T to Comcast switch. Today, I just got an e-mail about instlaling a "transition wizard" to help change the internet preferences or something on the appropriate day. Is it me, or why do Mac users need to do this anyway?

I've quoted below the e-mail from comcast... it seems ridiculous to think that any Mac user would have to doa thing. I didn't have to do a damn thing except plug my cable modem into the airport base station and off I went. unless this transition wizard isn't what they want you to think it is...?

The transition wizard consists of two parts. Prior to June 30, each time you restart your computer, the wizard checks our transition server for your transition date, currently scheduled for June 30, 2003. The Transition Wizard will automatically prepare your computer for the transition and configure your e-mail settings, which will change your attbi.com e-mail address to your comcast.net e-mail address. In order to have a smooth transition to the Comcast.net e-mail domain, you need to install the Transition Wizard on any computer that you currently use to access the AT&T Broadband Service. Automatic e-mail forwarding will be setup for you to make sure that all e-mails sent to your AT&T Broadband Internet account are forwarded to your new Comcast e-mail account through December 2004.
You will need to restart each computer on or after June 30th for the Transition Wizard to complete the second part of the transition. Don't worry, we'll remind you again about this important step. Until the scheduled transition date, your ATTBI e-mail address and homepage will not change. After the second part of the transition is completed, your Comcast homepage and e-mail account will be active and your AT&T Broadband Internet e-mail will be forwarded to your Comcast.net e-mail address.

John Strung · May 6, 2003, 11:35 AM

My guess is that all the wizard does is change your e-mail address from joe.blow@att.com to joe.blow@comcast.com in your e-mail clients and browsers, and perhaps change the names of the pop3, smtp and nntp servers.

Rainy Day · May 6, 2003, 12:52 PM

I concur with John.

Does the term "Wizard," a Windowsism anyhow, make anyone else's skin crawl? I wouldn't have it on my Mac (assuming it's even a Macintosh application). I'd just manually make whatever changes were necessary on the cutover date.

But it wouldn't surprize me one bit if the Wizard is a Windoze app. Did they say they had a Mac "Transition Wizard"? If they didn't explicitly say so, it probably ain't.

djjava · May 6, 2003, 01:06 PM

Originally posted by Rainy Day:
I concur with John.

Does the term "Wizard," a Windowsism anyhow, make anyone else's skin crawl? I wouldn't have it on my Mac (assuming it's even a Macintosh application). I'd just manually make whatever changes were necessary on the cutover date.

But it wouldn't surprize me one bit if the Wizard is a Windoze app. Did they say they had a Mac "Transition Wizard"? If they didn't explicitly say so, it probably ain't.

yes there was a Mac wizard....

i saw this whole thing as a stupid little scam, probably installing spywares or something. It's for laszy people who don't know how to change settings. screw that.

RainyDay, we protected the oil fields so Iraq could build a new economy on them.

Rainy Day · May 6, 2003, 01:57 PM

i saw this whole thing as a stupid little scam, probably installing spywares or something. It's for laszy people who don't know how to change settings. screw that.

If you've ever had a job doing customer support in the technology industry, you'd know the average call is about the stupidest crap. I can appreciate their desire to minimize the number of calls with some kind of automation.

But i think a person is better off doing it manually, if they have the expertise. YMMV.