AdamKB @ AOL.COM - Weblog

You know I'm out of the loop when I get surprised by a new AOL release for the Mac.

http://macblog.aol.com/2007/09/27/aol-desktop-for-mac-beta/

AOL is back for Mac. ... AOL is pleased to announce our brand new all-in-one web software now available to download in beta release: AOL Desktop for Mac. The best part, this new software was developed by Mac users, for Mac users, from the ground up. Your Mac makes your life easy. Make it even easier with the new AOL Desktop for Mac.

(The blog is new too.)

Great to see this, and I look forward to trying out the software.

http://beta.aol.com/projects.php?project=desktop_mac

adamkb at 11:31:46 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

I'm generally out of the loop on things these days, but in a political period this one caught my eye.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091307Z.shtml

A BIG thank you to all of you who have contacted AOL, Hotmail, MSN, WebTV and Yahoo and demanded delivery of your Truthout communications.

...

And when it comes to AOL, when they are your Internet provider, they are your mommy.

...

What to do:

For the time being just demand your email from the regular user support channels. If they tell you to jump through hoops say, "No ... just give me my emails."

...

Yes, let's start making demands and issuing ultimatums instead of handling technical problems with technical solutions.

The thing that drives me nuts about political reactionaries is they all think they're always right and that they deserve special treatment and they frequently abuse the Internet for their goals. (It's the same mentality that feels that they should be exempt from commercial do-not-call lists.) I don't know what TruthOut.org advocates and I don't care - the abuses seem to happen on every side of the political spectrum - perhaps because politicians and political operatives still do not understand the Internet and are only interested in exploiting it.

Carl Hutzler, the former anti-spam guy at AOL, delves deeply into the topic in his blog; I highly recommend it for people interested in these issues.

http://carlhutzler.com/blog/?p=221

...

I remember AOL automatically blocked the DNC and RNC repeatedly in election years for bad complaint rates and high bounce rates. Eventually these groups even told us that they bought "lists of likely voters" and emailed them. And as such, complaint rates and bounces were off the charts. And I remember having blocking issues with Moveon.org as well, at least once. These were not issues with the organization and what they stood for. The issues were due to mailing practices and the resulting poor statistics that the organizations had in our spam control systems.

Over the years we heard lots of excuses for why an inherently political organizationshould never be blocked and should always have their mail delivered, but we always felt that our thresholds should apply equally to everyone. Unlike some ISPs, AOL always used objective statistics to block or filter mail. We found we could not reliably do it any other way. And unlike other ISPs, AOL is fairly easy to get on the phone and we were always willing to investigate the possibility of special circumstances affecting our stats - like people trying to game the system, etc. And we did investigations into these claims many times a year.

For example, I remember being told by a number of political organizations that their spam complaint numbers were up because people were intentionally signing up for the newsletters and then complaining to make a political statement against the organization and hopefully get their mail blocked. But we found that this was not the case and in fact that the list management policies and poorly run unconfirmed optin forms were to blame in many cases. In other cases, we found that the "sign up your friend" system was not working to their benefit. After suggesting to these organizations that there may be reasons (within their control) for their poor stats and high bounce rates, many times they would publish nasty "call to arms" to get their community up in arms and put pressure on AOL. Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it didn't.

...

adamkb at 11:22:20 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

I don't seem to have much luck with AOL Alerts.

Today (yesterday actually) they added a neat new feature to sports alerts - you can see the teams in the subject line (for those sports junkies who follow multiple teams).

But it appears to still be under construction. Either that, or the league went through another expansion.

adamkb at 2:11:35 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

Oh really?

adamkb at 3:46:43 PM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

Love the iPhone, but what's with the giant graphic showing AOL email to be POP3-based?

adamkb at 8:06:43 PM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

Apparently AOL is dropping its AOL Communicator software, as Shawn Christopher notes. At least from its web site at communicator.aol.com.

It's still available for download on AOL at Keyword: AOL Communicator. Grab it while you can, if you want it.

Update: Oct 26, 2007

Per the comments you've all been posting, I dusted off my copy of AOL Communicator. I can confirm that while the product works for receiving AOL mail, it no longer seems able to send AOL mail.

AOL has not made any changes to its SMTP server, so I assume that AOL Communicator used a secret server that is no longer functioning. Since AOL Communicator has been discontinued for well over a year now, I wouldn't expect any help.

Update: Nov 17, 2007

Thanks to raymondhk and wstevens and everyone else in the Comments section of this journal entry for finding a fix that will make Communicator continue to work.

I don't want to take credit for their work, so please scroll down for all the details.

Please continue to use the comments on this entry to discuss how to ensure the longevity of Communicator.

adamkb at 6:59:56 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 73 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Ronnie the Running Man spent last weekend in Seattle.

Here he is, 520 feet in the air at the top of the Space Needle, looking southwest towards Puget Sound and the edge of Downtown Seattle beyond.

adamkb at 6:56:28 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

AOL members can now FTP directly into their web space using a Secure FTP (SFTP) connection to members.aol.com with their Screen Name and Password. This makes my FTP FAQ happily obsolete (and I'll go ahead and retire it in a few days).

There are detailed instructions how to do this on the Magic Smoke Journal:

http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/entries/1447

FTP beats web-based file managers in its versatility, especially when dealing with multiple files. But if you're happy with what you're using now, don't feel the need to switch. It requires the use of a separate FTP program capable of secure file transfers.

adamkb at 11:41:41 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 2 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

aimInfo points out that the Buddy List is celebrating its 10th birthday.

http://aimpages.aol.com/birthday

I remember clearly how it used to be...I'd sign on and do a Locate Member (Command-L at the time) if there were certain people to whom I wanted to talk. Most of the time I'd just sign on and go about my work and IM someone if I needed to talk to someone, much like a phone call. The concept of just knowing who was online didn't exist.

When news came of the Buddy List, my reaction was cynical. Oh, great, now all of my annoying friends are going to harass me as soon as I log on. And they did. Some of them still do. That said, the Buddy List completely changed online communication, and I'd be lost without it.

adamkb at 1:02:23 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

Have you seen your AIM Buddy Info page yet?

http://buddyinfo.aim.com/away/

You can see at a glance all of your Buddies' Away Messages and recently-updated profiles. I think it will display recent blog entries also.

I discovered this accidentally, as it's also linked to the AIM Pages site.

http://www.aimpages.com

I think these features are also incorporated into the AIM Triton's Buddy Update feature.

adamkb at 1:53:12 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 1 comments: Show Recent | Add your own