[Silky Voice of The Gorn]

So my dad, who I bought an iMac about three years ago and set up with AOL, calls me:

"HOW DO I GET PICTURES?"
"What do you mean?"
"IT'S TELLING ME I HAVE PICTURES!"
"Okay...did someone email you pictures?"
"IT SAYS I HAVE PICTURES!"
"Read to me exactly what the screen says..."
"TO SEE YOUR PICTURES, YOU NEED..."

...about 10 minutes of this back and forth, as he painstakingly reads to me that AOL insists the only way to see pictures is to either a) Upgrade to latest and greatest AOL, or b) use Netscrape Instigator version whatever...

"Pop, I'm going to log into your email from my computer, and see what this is..."
"OK"

...so setting Safari to Netscape user agent, I log into my father's AOL account...and guess what the pictures were? A bloody spam FROM AOL for their new "You Got Pictures" feature or some such crap. I'm sorry Case left AOL, now I don't know who's car to firebomb.

[iRebound]

ditch aol. what is it now like $24 a month? it's too much. sign up with a cheaper isp or something. the mac has everything that he needs. safari, mail, ichat

[Pepi Picklefoot]

A0L si teh suX0r!!!11 LOL!

[Silky Voice of The Gorn]

Originally posted by iRebound:
ditch aol. what is it now like $24 a month? it's too much. sign up with a cheaper isp or something. the mac has everything that he needs. safari, mail, ichat

Believe me, it pains us, PAINS US! His creaky old iMac won't run X, and I'm certainly not gonna try and teach this old dog new tricks, so it is what it is...

[iRebound]

Originally posted by Silky Voice of The Gorn:
Believe me, it pains us, PAINS US! His creaky old iMac won't run X, and I'm certainly not gonna try and teach this old dog new tricks, so it is what it is...

X still runs good on my Yosemite 300

[mitchell_pgh]

Ummm, why not just sign up with Earthlink... (they love the Mac!)

I know all about teaching an old dog new tricks, (Don't Bother)

-BUT-

I would get Earthlink and use M$ Outlook Express... We all hate M$, but that email application rocked. It could read everything, and is almost as advanced as Entourage for OS X (well, for reading email and general filtering).

-IE (stable, and the fastest of the slew of slow internet browsers)
-Outlook Express (a nice email application, too bad it was born in Redmond)
-AOL IM (100% proprietary... but it works)

If he doesn't want to update to a new computer or OS, he should just use those legacy application.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by iRebound:
X still runs good on my Yosemite 300

I have 10.2.3 on an orig. beige 233 G3 sysem, and it's slow, but solid... For people that don't need speed, it could work...

[CatOne]

I helped my parents transfer from AOL to Earthlink a couple years ago. They're much better off for it.

To think, they can actually SAVE their emails now in a REAL EMAIL CLIENT!11!11!!

[moss514]

10.2.4 runs nice on my iMac SE DV 400mhz. 'Course I do have 640mb ram

[11011001]

Is AOL only dial up, or do they have broadband?

[CatOne]

Originally posted by 11011001:
Is AOL only dial up, or do they have broadband?

I believe they have a broadband offering in some markets. But I can't see why you'd use it, unless you LIKE their popups hitting you with book ads every time you fire it up.

Your local telco can do a lot better job. The main issue is that AOL has the portal in front of your face when you log on, and a browser/email client doesn't necessarily. But everyone I've helped switch is WAY happier down the road.

[malvolio]

I had an AOHell account for a while back in 1996. I first went on line about a month before the demise of eWorld. When eW bit the dust, all members were offered a "free" conversion to AOL. I kept my @aol.com account until AOL switched from charge-by-the-hour to unlimited access later that year. Suddenly it became damn near impossible to get on line at any time except 3 a.m.
After I switched to a real ISP, it only took a day or two for me to fully realize that AOL really does suck.