I can't believe I'm gonna admit this but.............
I've been paying $10 a month for 6 months for an AOHell account
. There was a reason for me signing up. My brother uses AOL because he does a lot of Diecast buying/selling and there are groups there that he does business with. When I got cable internet over a year ago, he stayed with a dial-up for another 6 months (he used another dial-up ISP because AOL didn't have local numbers). When I convinced him to use the cable - AOL couldn't step him through how to set up broadband and AOL. They had him format.
Anyway, I d/l'ed AOL to a box I wasn't going to use and played around with it for an hour and got it to work. I've kept the account active figuring I'd play around with the bloatware and try to figure out what it is that AOL actually does to the o/s that way I could have a better idea what to look for when a customer calls with problems. I havn't had much time to play around with it (I have never used AOL before this except trying to remove it from machines
). In defense of the AOL users here (not starting a war), that box is still running fine as a print server.
Am I gonna pay $14.50 for a service I don't use - I don't think so. My question is how can AOL justify the increase from $5 to $14.50 when they don't have local dial-up numbers
? I get at least two calls a month to remove AOL from a computer and set them up with a local ISP when people get thier first phone bill for $200+ after they install the free cd that came in the mail
.
A related rant.
I built a computer for a lady the week before Christmas. My warranty is pretty much like
Doc's . She was in a hurry for this computer and wanted delivery before the holidays. I delivered it without Ghosting the drive. I told here not to put AOL on the computer (Road Runner was being installed 3 days after delivery). She said fine. I get a call while I was in Florida from her saying that the RR tech said that he couldn't finish the install because the guy who built it forgot to install "something". She said that he was there for four hours trying and he couldn't get it to work. She's pretty upset saying that she specifically wanted the computer set up for cable.
I guess this is my payment for all the bad I've ever done by building boxes for morons
. I explained to her that yes, there is an ethernet card in the back (what's ethernet). I asked her if she installed AOL (yes). I had her online in about ten minutes after that from 1400 miles away.
'Kay, I'll shut up. I just wonder why a Time Warner / AOL tech couldn't figure out how to set it up
. It pi$$es me off when someone can't figure out something so it MUST be someone else's fault - never thier lack of knowledge. I take a lot of pride into what I build and for a computer I built to come under attack from a moron who can't do a job he's paid 40 hours a week, week in, week out get's me. So, once again, I fix an ISP's problem (Road Runner, AOL, Adelphia - it never ends) for free. Maybe I ought to start billing them for tech support
.
Mike
hardware
prices 
