So Brothers I have Mother Rico's eMac up and running.

She has an AOL dial up account. Does any one know the trick to get internet connect to establish a link. I keep getting a error that AOL will not authenticate.

Is the only way to connect to AOL to use AOL's software?

Is the only way to connect to AOL to use AOL's software?

I don't know if this applies, but I've heard that many people just use Navigator instead of tha AOL stuff to at least browse the interent. I don't know whether or not this would help solve any connections issues. Maybe it would help in testing it.

Thanks Brad

Yeah the problem is Internet connect in Panther can not estabish a link with her AOL account so I can not get as far as browsing yet.

Internet connect will dial up but just as it communicates with AOL it disconnects saying AOL refused authentication.

My only suggestion is to try a pound key (#) before the user name or password. This is a real shot in the dark, but I know that Netcom required such foolishness at one time to correct a problem my brother was having.

Maybe the AOL setup didn’t configure the connections properly.

AOL software is famously crappy. Many websites—including thalo.net—won’t display properly, or at all, on AOL...at least the pre-X versions of AOL. The only way I’m able to participate here is to use IE over AOL 5 in my dial-up account in OS 8.6.

Markle

I am an AOL nitwit.

The only way to access an AOL account is using AOL software.

The eMac is up and running.

You must splurge for the swivel stand.

And pick up a free AOL install disk.

Markle IE?

I would not expect you of all Brothers to crapsettle like that.

<< The only way to access an AOL account is using AOL software. >>

That is partly true, but not completely. If you already have an AOL account, say, on your home computer, you can log onto aol.com from ANY computer with your password and get into your e-mail account.

<< Markle IE?
I would not expect you of all Brothers to crapsettle like that. >>

I know, I’m reminded of it every day of my life. But it’s not so much IE that’s the problem as 1) AOL and b) dial-up. I’m hanging on to this absurd situation by my fingernails, waiting for whatever platform change is in my future. Although I admit I haven’t researched it, I’m skeptical I could find current versions of all the appropriate software I would need for DSL for my old system.

Believe me, I KNOW how awful my internet setup is.

Markle

<<That is partly true, but not completely. If you already have an AOL account, say, on your home computer, you can log onto aol.com from ANY computer with your password and get into your e-mail account.>>

The problem with Mother Rico is that all she has is AOL dial up. The only way to access AOL dial up is by using the AOL software.

Markle when you are ready for DSL you know you can find plenty of help making that transition. Even on your present set up.

One more question. How do you get an AOL address book to another machine?

If the other machine has the AOL software, you can copy the Address Book file to it. In Mac OS (I can’t help with OS X) you find it on the first machine in the Preferences Folder—>America Online—>Data. The file is in the Data sub-folder, and you copy it over.

Markle

Thanks Markle.

Sorry I did not specify earlier she has a Gateway PC running Window 98. From Windows I thought I might be able to copy and paste her address book either to an email and just email this to her AOL address or to another document like notepad and transfer it over that way. The only problem is that the AOL software addressbook does not allow you to copy only to paste within addressbook. Hard to believe you can not export an addressbook so it can be imported on another machine. Seeing as AOL had a 24 year old employee recently get caught selling 92 million addresses to spammers for $100,000 but as an AOL user you are locked out of moving your personal data around.

There is an ability to sync a PDA but that is out of her limited knowledge.

Mac OS X would most likely be the same as copying a file over as you do in the Legacy.

A follow up on the end to the AOL story.

AOL sucks.

I was able to see two seperate versions of AOL. 5.0 and 9.0.

In 5.0 there was a way to save an address books contents to a propriotary AOL file that I assume another 5.0 version could import. AOL 9.0 was not able to import such a file.

AOL 5.0 would not allow you to even print a list of your address book that I could figure out how. 9.0 did allow you to print a list. But you still could not copy from the list.

In the end I upgraded the Gateway machine to AOL 9.0. Doing this the address book of AOL 9.0 on the eMac all of a sudden had updated Mother Rico's address book that appears on the Gateway. Problem solved.

Now the dilemma is what happens to the attachments Mother Rico downloads thru AOL.

"They will download to the desktop".

"Yes but were are they on the computer".