From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Quoting
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 20:09:04 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: <MarkLFischer at aol.com>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 6:31 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Quoting

> In a message dated 4/22/2005 4:43:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> omni at omniphile.com writes:
>
> >I knew AOL had their own interface, but I wasn't aware that it didn't
use
> >standard protocols.  I've never used AOL.  They really went  out and
> >reinvented POP3/IMAP and SMTP for use with their user  interface?  Or
are
> >even using something other than TCP/IP between  the client and the
server or
> >don't support the usual socket interface at  the client end?
>
> AOL was not, in the beginning, an ISP, it was a standalone online
service,
> and what content they provided was what you got.  The protocols involved
were
> entirely proprietary.  For one thing, the client side carries a much
heavier
> load than a regular ISP (this is the root of most of the problems people
have
> with AOL).  Legacy issues, and some business choices largely having to
do
> with advertising, have kept AOL in its own insular orbit.
>
> It's possible to access AOL mail with Outlook, and probably with other
> clients as well, using IMAP, but duelling message retention systems
soured  me on
> that very quickly.  AOL's plan for standards-compliant POP3 mail  access
was
> killed literally hours before rollout by the legal department.   The
company had
> sold advertising rights to all mail screens, and their inability  to
transmit
> the banners to third-party email clients would have placed them in
technical
> breach.
>
> AOL is useful for beginners, and also users who have no interest in  the
geek
> side of things, or "power user" features, and just want a single  package
> with decent utility that gives them what they need with a minimum of
fuss.  From
> years of doing tech support for them, I find that the  archetypal "dumb
> AOLers" are just regular folks dealing with unfamiliar and  vaguely scary
> technology.

My daughter has had AOL (until very recently), and back in 1998, before I
had a computer at home but after I'd left the company (Logotel) where I'd
had computer access, I would drive to her house and use her AOL account as
a subsidiary (she had five user-names available to her).  I used this
account for maybe two months.  I hated it.   I found it continuously
annoying in large and small ways -- not least for the ads everywhere.

Years later I was having ISP problems and had to get a file to someone via
computer ASAP, and I tried using my daughter's computer.  AOL thoroughly
munged the file I attached to my email (and it required so many steps, too)
and I ended up *dictating* two paragraphs lost in the aether, by phone.

It took years to wean another friend from AOL; he kept insisting that he
liked AOL's "communities."

People who have AOL accounts seem to feel obligated to upgrade to each new
version AOL puts out.  Several years ago they "upgraded" to html-enriched
email, which caused people problems on several lists I'm on, where plain
text is preferred.  And the friend referred to above *hated* the way AOL
would bump him off-line when he was in the middle of writing a long email.

So it goes....

--Ted White