Help! It's taken over my computer! (AOL)

Member Name: moonbailey

Product:	AOL
Date:	01/09/01 (83 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast access, useful categories, good search engine

Disadvantages: scarey voices

I'm in a love/hate relationship with AOL. I love it's adorable little extras and fast access - then it goes an upgrades itself and makes me wipe half the stuff off my hard drive - THE B*ST**D!

I've got an old computer. It only has a limited amount of space. I've been a professional photographer so naturally I've got some pictures stored on the system - So it's quite 'full'.

AOL has an annoying habit of improving itself rather often, and lovely though this is - I've yet to find a way of stopping it from reinstalling its mammoth self automatically as and whem this happens.

9 times out of 10 - I haven't got enough space so end up deleting things I really shouldn't until it can finish the process! I recently (pre-dooyoo) erradicated 120 opinions on everything you need to know for buying 120 useful things, which I wrote for a company that then went bust. When would I ever need that again hey?!

But apart from this small uncontrollable force that is AOL (Lord of the computer),it has done me many a favour.

I have used the helpline a few times and although you're on hold for the best part of a week, it's a free call and the lovely Irish people are so friendly, you'll want to invite them round for tea.

I tried to cancel my account a few times when I wasn't going to be using the internet for a while - but they simply gave me another free month and loads of free minutes so that I would stay connected. When I did finally decide to quit - it was quick and simple.

I've since rejoined.

The only problem I did have was when my phone line was out of order for nearly a month and AOL refused to refund the unlimited use monthly fee of £14.99 (because I'd logged on for 20 minutes just before the line went out of use - which counted as that month).

Since moving home I discovered the useful section called 'BEST NUMBERS'. This automatic
ally works out the best freephone numbers for your computer to dial, that work fastest in your area. Fab! It works! And on my computer that's really something.

I love the news page that comes up automatically when you log on to the net - and often get sidetracked on it's topics of discussion and user polls. (throughout the Big Brother experience - I was one step ahead thanks to the country-wide representative votes of the AOL public - in a virtual eviction game)

You can also request which bits you don't want to flash up when you log on - like the buddy list that bugged me for a while.

I also check the weather daily from the category list on the left of the screen which is always up to date of the next 24 hours forecast. I don't know why I check this - I never go out now I've got into dooyoo. I just use it to determine how much light reflection I'm due to get on my screen this afternoon. (joke - please don't offer help)

Also, I've got some shares knocking about that I'd love to sell. I typed them into the shares update service and now it displays the prices, correct to the last 15 minutes, at the touch of a button and also calculated your profit and loss (clever that). Bit of a step forward from waiting for the pages to come round on Teletext!

I've dipped into some other categories that all impressed me but these are the ones I find indespensible. Basically though, the other sections make buying a paper a thing of the past - you can catch up on news, events, gossip and comedy listings and loads more - whatever you're into.

I find the search engine quick and efficient the services (top toolbar) occassionally useful (favourites, email, customising and print shortcut). Other than that, the background colour is inoffensive and everything is easy to read.

One word of advice though, I've had to disable the speakers. The voices that comes from nowhere freak me out
. A friend used my computer recently to listen to a CD and left them on high volume. I pitched up at 7.00am to check my email, in a sleepy state.

'WELCOME TO AOL!!! bellowed round the room like a bomb warning and frightened the bejesus out of me.

It was toilet time, I can tell you!

Never again.

So, if you're looking for a nice, blue ISP with cute extras, give this one a go. It's alright.

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