Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with AOL

AOL logo font?

nostrich — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:09:09 -0800

What font is the AOL logo? Images here, for reference.

How do I stop getting AOL IM's texted to my phone?

TwilightKid — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 07:00:58 -0800

I'm on a Mac and I use the program Adium to access my AOL IM account. I also have a Blackberry Bold....At some point, I decided to try the feature of connecting my AOL IM account to my cell phone which would allow me to receive IM's on my phone even when I am logged off from the service...Now I don't know how to make it stop.. I don't recall actually when or how I set this feature up....I originally set it up when I had my iphone.

So, I have basically when through every possible Adium option, as well as looking through my AOL IM program on m blackberry and even logging on through AOL IM on the computer... I cannot figure out how to remove my cell phone number from this process. I want to stop being texted with IM's on my phone..... I have the app for AOL IM on the phone now, so I do not need this other feature...

Much thanks for any guidance...

How to remove built-in auto-complete entries from AOL's email client?

gemmy — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:37:59 -0800

How to remove the built-in auto-complete entries from AOL's email client? My auntie uses AOL to access the internet. Whenever she goes to send an email and starts typing in the "To:" field, the software tries to auto-complete a match from her address book. Pretty standard. She can remove erroneous auto-complete entries (like mistyped new email addresses, which get added to the list automatically if she hits send without noticing) by deleting them from her address book.

However, there are a bunch of AOL-centric email addresses that show at the top of the auto-complete entries. Things like aolmedia, aolhelp, etc. There is no option for removing these entries from the address book, and there doesn't seem to be any way to remove them from the auto-complete list. They disappear if you add more letters, but they are confusing her. I have spent some time on AOL online help and on various forums trying to figure out a way to remove those addresses from the auto-complete list, with no luck.

Normally it's easy to fix any issues, even long distance, as my parents live nearby and are tech savvy. But we are all stumped here. Before I install the client in order to troubleshoot (shudder!), I figured I would ask here first. Anyone know how to get rid of these built-in auto-complete entries? AOL 9.5, running on Windows XP.

(Ditching AOL is not an option. If it was, I wouldn't be asking. She has used it for ages and is comfortable with it.)

Separate Firefox accounts on the same computer?

quintno — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:14:10 -0800

Is it possible to set up 2 different Firefox "accounts" on the same computer, with each account having separate bookmarks, settings, etc. In addition, is it possible to import bookmarks from AOL to Firefox? My wife is thinking of shifting to Firefox, but we're wondering if it would be too much of a hassle, given her hundreds of bookmarks/"favorites"--and the desire for each of us to have our own customized version of the software.

Why did an email containing sensitive info disappear from my mom's aol account?

slowcat — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 05:40:19 -0800

My mom sent an email to herself on AOL containing sensitive information, and it never arrived - and there's no record of it in her inbox, or sent-message folder. Should we be worried? (details inside) My mom recently sent an email containing sensitive information to herself using her AOL account, on a hotel wireless network. She never received it, and it doesn't show up in her sent-mail folder either. She sent the message around 5:30 pm, and at 4:45 the next morning she received an email from MAILER-DAEMON@aol.com with the subject "Mail Delivery Problem", that just said this:

"Your mail to the following recipients could not be delivered because they are not accepting mail from [email redacted]:

[random user name she's never seen]"

No details about the email, and no subject line, so we can't be sure if its related. Either way, should we be worried? Should we contact AOL? Is there some way the information could have been intercepted by a third party? And why is there no record of the email in her account?

Thanks!

Embedded email images what?

hapticactionnetwork — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:28:56 -0800

What is going on when I sent an attached image from Mail (on my Mac) to an aol email address? So, someone who runs a website wants to promote an event i'm hosting, and asked for a promotional image. Great!

But, when I tried to send the image (a jpeg, using Mail, on my Mac, 10.5.2, from a gmail account) he said the photo would "not open because it's embedded in the email text area."

He asked if I could resend the photo as an attachment, but I'm pretty sure that's what I did the first time. Is there something I'm not understanding? I clicked the "attach" button in Mail, made sure the "send windows-friendly attachments" checkbox was checked, and selected the file like I usually do. I kind of suspect it has something to do with the fact that he's using aol, but I'm open to the possibility that it's something I'm doing.

Also, I tried searching the wider web for information about this, and some of it was helpful, but it was all a little over my head. I won't be offended if you explain what's going on to me like I'm an infant.

AOLs of graphis are giving me ARTache

sandra_s — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:03:18 -0800

Is there any way to view old AOL .art files? A friend of mine gave me a CD of that she took around 1999-2000 and every one of the files in in ".art" format. She cant view them anymore.

I never had AOL, but supposedly they used to be able to be viewed in explorer, but microsoft removed that ability due to security concerns.

I have scoured Google, and installed a few programs that people said "should" work (ACDSee, IrfanView, XnView...) but none worked.

I even have Photoshop CS2, and that wont open them.

Is there anything I can use to view/convert these files. I'd prefer solutions that have actually worked for you :-)

I have PCs and Macs at my disposal.

Thanks in advance!

AOL IM clients no longer working, but only at home. Could it be my router?

kdern — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 04:53:58 -0800

AOL IM clients no longer working, but only at home. Could it be my router? On my Mac, I use both ichat and Adium for AOL IM. I can't get AOL IM to work on either one when at home any more. I can access GoogleTalk with either client, but not AOL. When I use the same network on the wireless network at work, I can access AOL IM on Adium on my Mac with no problem.

Another family member in the house has a PC, and she uses Trillian. She also can't access AOL IM lately. This has been going on for about 2-3 weeks. Once in blue moon it works, but 95% of the time, we can't connect.

Note - We can both connect via Meebo from home with no problem.

At home, I have a cable modem connected to a wireless router. It's worked fine for the last 2 years.

How to save videos from video.aol.com?

royalchinook — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 11:55:31 -0800

I would like to be able to watch videos from video.aol.com when I'm offline but am unable to save the ones that come from in2tv. The one that I'm specifically looking for is The Fugitive Pilot put out by in2tv.

I am able to save many other videos from AOL's video section but these ones are proving elusive. I've tried Video DownloadHelper which didn't seem to work for me even though other videos from AOL would work with that add-on.

Anyone else have other ideas?

AOL IM unwanted sound

sandra194 — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 06:51:11 -0800

Don't want that sound when sending an AOL IM response. I have looked all over the AOL IM software preferences to get rid of the sound that happens after you type a message/response to your buddy while chatting in the IM window. When you hit return--there is an odd sound that you hear over whatever else you are listening to on the computer.

How can I turn this sound off? I can't find it anywhere!

AIM service chanegd last week?

machaus — Tue, 15 May 2007 09:31:55 -0800

Did AOL change something with AIM statuses? When I use Adium or iChat on my Mac now, I only see people's custom status if they are set to 'away.' Other people I know are experiencing this same behavior and I can't find any documentation of why or exactly when this changed last week.

Any tools to manage status for multiple messaging clients?

fsmontenegro — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:30:08 -0800

Are there any Windows utilities that manage the status information for multiple IM clients? Skype, MSN, Yahoo... I have used many IM clients over the years, including Trilliam, Miranda, as well as the "default" ones from MSN, Yahoo, etc... Because of the need for "advanced" features, I end up relying more on the standard clients rather than the cross-platform (Trillian, GAIM, Miranda, ...) ones.

Is anyone aware of a tool (Windows preferred, Java is OK) that will manage JUST the status information on multiple clients? I'd like something that I can select my status (online, away, busy, ...) and have that use each client's API to set the client status transparently.

Any ideas?

Locked out of my AIM account

empath — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 15:53:52 -0800

Help, I lost my AIM account. I had my password for AIM saved for years on my local computer. I tried to sign on from another pc but I didn't remember the password. I then asked AIM to reset my password, but I guess I don't know what email address i used to sign up for aim like 9 years ago, so I can't get to that either, and now I can't logon from the PC where I had my password previously saved.

Am I up a creek here or is there a way to get it back?

parents just don't understand

mdpc98 — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:47:33 -0800

aol optimization on the parental computer... i'd bet 80% of you have the same experience when visiting parents: "it was working well after the last time you visited, but it keeps getting slower..."

what i know:
1) aol must run on this machine
2) aol must run on this machine
3) avg free and clamwin claim it virus free
4) spybot found some cookies and nothing else
5) system memory is 512, but i will bump to at least 1gb
6) win xp home sp 2 on a 2.8ghz p4
7) aol 9.0 optimized 'revision 4156.5036 provided by dell' is installed
8) dad says "ever since aol decided it had to fix everything, it keeps getting slower"
9) aol must run on this machine
10) i nothing about aol

what i need to know:
what advice can you offer (save the 'ditch aol')? will a reinstall of aol clean things up? will a reinstall make things worse? is there a optimal configuration of aol that will make it play nice? is there a piece of software made to either clean aol sludge or config it to make less mess? any advice along these lines is welcome.

happy holidays

Help My Away Messages Grow

andoatnp — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 09:07:50 -0800

I am trying to create a brief weekly calendar for work of upcoming events that will be posted as an AOL IM away message that people can check throughout the week. How can I create a longer AIM away message than the default allows? I would prefer to type an away message that is about 3-4 times longer than the characters allowed. I'm running AIM v5.5.3415 and Dead AIM on Win XP. I need to stick with XP, but anything else can change. Are there any add-on programs, hacks, newer versions, other IM programs that people on AIM can view the away messages to, or browser clients (meebo?) that would allow me to create longer or unlimited away messages?

Does not have to be free. That you very much for the help.

Is Internet Messaging ready for business?

SteveInMaine — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 07:26:58 -0800

Some folks in our office have shown the desire to use IM to communicate with other companies we do business with, pretty much at the urging of the external companies. I have some concerns. As the IT guy for a small company with a remote office, up until now I've pushed back on this idea using concerns about security as my main reason. I’ve read here about some of the potential virus problems, but of course this is from a company that sells antivirus software. Then for me personally there's the aggravation factor, as I don't think that I would like to have to respond IM pop-ups while I'm in the middle of a project. Yet I still get regularly get emails from folks in the company wondering when I'm going to give the go-ahead, so I thought I'd ask the questions here.

Are my concerns valid? If I do allow folks to install IM, what kinds of problems should I anticipate? It seems there's an interest in both AOL and MSN IM - is one preferred over the other for business use? And is one client better than the other, or should I look at one of the 3rd party clients (we're a windows shop)?

Help me find a cheaper Internet provider.

TwilightKid — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 11:52:31 -0800

I live in NYC, and had AOL for Broadband for my internet service provided to me through Time Warner. AOL recently waived their fee's and is now free. I am left paying Tie Warner about $45 bux a month for broadband service.....I wanna find something cheaper, yet just as fast and efficient... Who can point me in the right direction? IS DSL a safe route to go? I never really learned the difference between the two; (broadband and DSL). Are their cheaper services out there, but just as good?

aol aolsearch porn

chef_boyardee — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 09:13:30 -0800

I've been perusing the leaked AOL database, and it's kind of disturbing how many users are searching for child porn. Does anyone have this DB in mysql and can run some numbers on what percentage of users are doing these searches? What about searches for plain vanilla porn... how common is that?

searching for old buddy list wavs

daninnj — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 20:09:14 -0800

Does anyone have these two old AOL/AIM buddy list sign on/off wavs? Back when I used AOL six years ago, there were these two wavs I used as my buddy list sounds. When someone logged on, a man would say "You've got company" and when someone logged off, the same voice would say "Later!" My dad remembers the sounds and he said I got them off download.com. I remember downloading them from an AOL-specific ftp site. I can't find them now, on the old computer, or the web. Anyone have them?

Forwarding AOL email

marc10 — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:35:36 -0800

What is the best way to forward/redirect AOL email? I have an AOL email account. I am trying to determine the best way to redirect mail from that account to another email account.

My current setup: I have an old iMac with an email client (Microsoft Entourage). Every few minutes, the email client logins into my AOL account and redirects any new email to another account.

This setup works ok...sometimes it gets an error message and the whole thing stops working. There is also a delay of a few minutes.

I was wondering if anyone has any other suggestions?

(FYI: AOL accounts are IMAP)

The Write Stuff

daninnj — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 14:30:11 -0800

Does anyone remember an AOL newsletter named "The Write Stuff?" Anyone have an archive of it? Back in my AOL days, I subscribed to a email newsletter called "The Write Stuff" around 1997. I believe it was weekly, AOL-only, and it was basically a newsletter of writing tips, short stories and essays, a poll (which many people submitted answers to every edition), and some other stuff. I remember a section entitled "Tips From Patchy" (or close to that).

Being an illogical nine year old at the time, I printed out every newsletter and had a binder full of at least a thousand pages. Then my mother threw it all out four or five years later.

Help me help my Mom get off of AOL!

Sprout the Vulgarian — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 07:47:18 -0800

Help me convince my mother to switch from aol to gmail. My mother is a brilliant English teacher, but she is somewhat technology-averse. She has been using an aol address forever (since they got internet in the '90s while I was in college), and she has never liked the whole aol interface, with all those bells and whistles and horribleness. However, she doesn't like the idea of switching, and notifying people, and learning a new program.

I have already registered a gmail account for her. Here's where I would really like guidance:

1. What email program should I get her set up with? Obviously, she'll be able to use the browser-based gmail interface, but I think she would prefer to use a software program where she can read and compose off-line. I'd like something easy-to-use and familiar to her. I use Thunderbird, but I think she'd hate it, and I'm leaning toward Outlook. Suggestions?

2. What is the fastest, easiest way for her to transition, contacts-wise? I expect to import her contacts into the new program, and maybe set up a forwarding filter and/or automated reply on AOL. I have zero experience with the AOL interface, so I don't know what I'm walking into. Anyone who's aided in such a transition, I'd love advice on this.

3. How do I talk her through general AOL withdrawal? She is afraid of change in the computer realm, but she does know that this is a good move to make. I would appreciate any tips from folks who've helped encourage friends/family make a switch like this.

Email woes: AOL, Reverse DNS and Network Solutions.

o2b — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 14:09:28 -0800

Email from my company's domains aren't making it to AOL users... why is this so hard to fix? We have a couple of domains, one of them is hosted with Network Solutions.

AOL has told us that emails from our domains are not making it through their spam filters because the domains don't have reverse DNS settings.

Network Solutions has said they do not support reverse DNS -- am I crazy or is this rediculous?

Are they full of crap, or do I need to transfer my domains away -- and if so, to whom?

Wuz she hax0r3d?

Shane — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 20:16:28 -0800

Wuz she hax0r3d?
Scenarios that explain this situation, please: Someone (not I) tries to connect to the 'Net on her AOHell account & gets an error message, the gist of which is "Ain't gonna log you on; reppy5 is already logged on to your account at another location." reppy5 is not one of the accounts/screen-names she has ever created. Has she been hacked? Used as a zombie? Hacked by a zombie? A zombie for what, for spam? A few minutes later she logs onto the 'Net and DOES get online, she calls AOL and is told to change her password. That's all she is told & she can barely understand this much from the AOHell CSR. She asks them to investigate reppy5 & they tell her to e-mail the TOS-General.

If she changed her password to something with letters (lower AND upper case) & numbers, it's not likely she'll be hacked again, right? Someone probably set up a program to run a random password generator on a list of confirmed usernames s/he got from AOL, got lucky with my friend, & now it's not likely to happen again? I'm no Techno-God, I'm just spex-you-lating.

Various scenarios? Whahappened? She wants to e-mail reppy5--should she?

Thanks, youse technorati ;-)
BTW, I only added "britney spears" to the list of tags on this post because anybody searching MeFi for info on Britney deserves to be misdirected ;-)

Disable AIM prompt?

hokie409 — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:28:03 -0800

Disable stupid AOL instant message warning? I use AOL instant messenger. I also use a VPN. Whenever I log into my VPN or lose my VPN connection for a second I get this prompt:
"(08:52:53) AOL System Msg: Your screen name (myname) is now signed into AOL(R) Instant Messenger (TM) in 3 locations. To sign off the other location(s), reply to this message with the number 1. Click here for more information." Is there any way to get rid of this annoying prompt?