AdamKB @ AOL.COM - Weblog

So This Is Goodbye

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:58:07 GMT

http://www.peopleconnectionblog.com/2008/09/30/were-closing-our-doors/

We're Closing Our Doors

Posted on Sep 30th 2008 10:06AM by Kelly Wilson

Dear AOL Hometown and Journal's users,

Soon you will be receiving an e-mail providing additional information about Hometown/FTP and Journals. Both of these experiences are closing their doors. Please read the following blog entries to learn more about AOL Hometown/FTP and AOL Journals.

...

So apparently this is it. I have no intention of moving this blog, as it's been largely abandoned anyway. If I had the time I'd make an archive of the postings, but I don't. I'm afraid it will be lost to the ether.

I began blogging about AOL and related topics in March of 2004. It was an interesting experiment at the time and I'm glad I did it. As my interest in these topics has waned over the years, as has the quality of my contributions. Ah well.

I'm equally indifferent about the demise of my web site, which formally began back in June of 1997. I haven't made any serious updates in four years, and it's showing its age. The loss of my FAQs is a slightly larger travesty, but I haven't been good about updating those either. Much of the information is still somewhat relevant, but increasingly uninteresting. AOL has moved to standard email services that are much less eccentric than they used to be (assuming those don't get canned also).

Thanks to everyone who has supported me, quietly and vocally, over the years. I'll still be around. Just not as indelibly.

Au revoir.

AOL Communicator, R.I.P.

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:59:56 GMT

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.

New AOL Desktop (and Blog) for Mac

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:31:46 GMT

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

Politics, Truth, and Junk Email

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:22:20 GMT

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.

...

Who's on First?

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:11:35 GMT

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.

Post No Bills

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:46:43 GMT

Oh really?

ATTN Steve Jobs

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 01:06:43 GMT

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

Ronnie the Running Man

Fri, 21 May 2004 01:16:22 GMT

Meet Ronnie, my previously-mentioned plush AOL Running Man.

Here's Ronnie at my computer getting some work done.

Other Ronnie photos include:

Ronnie on Space Needle in Seattle (June 10, 2006)
Ronnie on the beach in Mexico (March 6, 2006)
Ronnie lounging in Las Vegas (May 11, 2005)
Ronnie snowmobiling in Minocqua (February 20, 2005)
Ronnie fishing in Lake Geneva (June 13, 2004)

Ronnie in Seattle

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 22:56:28 GMT

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.

I don't miss prints (much)

Thu, 11 May 2006 22:12:06 GMT

Will at The AOL Pictures Blog asks "Do you miss prints?"

http://journals.aol.com/aolpictures/AOLPictures/entries/1199

I've always been fascinated with photography. There are professional photographers in my family, and I took photography in school. (There was a setback in school when my father's prized camera was stolen, and it was a while before I got back into the swing of things. I've never totally recovered from that disappointment.)

A few years ago I took a cross-country roadtrip, and took several rolls' worth of photos (including the one to the right of the Grand Canyon). When I got back and took them to be developed, I was dismayed by the cost. Back then, AOL's You've Got Pictures feature was still relatively new, and I chose to also have them delivered to me in that manner. It was my first foray into digital photography (despite having taken the pictures on a film-based camera), and I realized what I had been missing. I haven't looked back since. (Except on sports photography, which is another story for another day.)

My job now has a photography component, and I take thousands of pictures a year. I don't miss the hassles of film.

Will says:

Now, we get instant gratification. We see the photo on the viewfinder. We can delete it, heck, we can even beam them back to a website on some cameras. At my sister's 40th birthday in February, I took many photos ... And everyone wanted to see the shots right away, and would say "delete that one" or "that looks too dark, remove it", or "I'm pulling a face, let me take it again".

Yep, the worst part of digital photography is that you lose the element of reality. Digital photography is more like painting a portrait - you're creating a moment rather than capturing it. You take the same picture over and over again until everyone is happy with how it looks.

Or you delete it and it's gone forever.