electron zoo

Long known as the “easy” internet — praised by grandmothers and shunned by the tech elite — AOL, at $20+ per month, has seemed overpriced for years. The free hours of internet they used to offer upfront used to seem like a steal, but they’re now as easy to come by as so many landfill-clogging promo CDs.

Which is why I felt pretty silly installing AOL 9 on my pristine and professional Shuttle XPC last week. Why would I do that? Mainly because AOL is suddenly FREE. So why shouldn’t I add it to my at-home website-testing arsenal so I can ensure that my websites and HTML email newsletters look okay for the at-AOL-dot-com crowd?

Here’s how I set it up:
1. Go to AOL’s free email setup screen and create your new at-AOL-dot-com email address.
2. Get the AOL 9.0VR software from AOL’s download page and install it.
3. Login with your new AOL account (that you created in Step 1).

Now I’m sending all my test HTML emails to my at-AOL-dot-com email account (in addition to Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, and others) … rather than just relying on my Mom to check them for me. (Sorry Mom, I’ll miss you.)

AOL didn’t seem to have taken over my computer too audaciously, but a familiar little triangle is lurking in my system tray, just waiting to say “Welcome!”. (Yes, AOL is free, so “Welcome” and “You’ve Got Mail!” won’t cost you a dime.)

Anyway, I believe that both AOL users and web developers will benefit from free AOL, because developers will be more likely to test their content in AOL now that it’s free — certainly I am — and that means less buggy internet content for AOL end-users.

And because Time Warner (who owns AOL) can still sell pricey Road Runner High Speed Internet accounts to the kind of users that have $20+ a month for AOL, the company may even have a future beyond monthly billing.

Although I avoid calling this website a blog in public, I do use blogging software to keep it up to date … or out of date, depending. In that vein, I’m keeping up with the times by updating to a 2005 blogging app … just in time for 2006. Oops. (I’m now using WordPress instead of Blogger. I signed up for Blogger in 2001 and had been using ever since.)

While moving my site, I redesigned it and got rid of some old posts I wrote in 2001 and 2002. Many of them weren’t relevant or worth keeping up anymore, but I did find some oldie-but-goodie links to share.

• Boring North Pole webcam. Originally posted in June 2002. Oh by the way, it’s dark there from October to March, so this webcam publishes blank, black photos six months a year. (See above.)
• The Haiku-o-Matic. When I posted this in April 2002, one of my favorites was: alien life form / lays its eggs within my chest. / my shirt is ruined.
• What do you do when the world’s about to end? Many of you may have answered DRINK!! — but when? Be sure to keep this handy Apocalypse Drinking Game on hand to be sure you’re playing by the rules. As useful today as when I first posted it in April 2002.

I hope you enjoyed these highlights, because I spent an hour following old, broken links and reading “Sorry I haven’t posted lately” posts in order to gather them for you.

Up next? A new 5 Gadgets post is coming your way this week. And if you want to leave me new comments, that would be swell — I lost all my old ones in the move.

(Here’s an email I sent to AT&T Wireless’s online customer service today.)

Dear AT&T Online Customer Service,

I tried to login to my account and was prompted to enter a “secret question”. Fine, but these are TERRIBLE secret questions:

What is the name of a childhood pet?
What is the name of a childhood hero?
What is your favorite restaurant?
Who is the person you would most like to meet?
Who is/was your favorite school teacher?
Who is your favorite artist?
Who is your favorite author?
Who is your favorite actor?
What was your favorite toy as a child?
What movie did you enjoy the most?
What book did you enjoy the most?

I can’t answer ANY of them. Has it ever occurred to you that some people do NOT have favorite artists, authors, or actors? Or more to the point, may people DO have favorites, but they change every day.

Further, for some people, all of their childhood pets’ names had fewer than five characters, which is your minimum number of characters allowed in an answer. Also, what if my favorite artist were Cher?

How about something that DOES NOT change, like what elementary school did you go to? Or who was your first best friend? Or hospital were you born in? Or who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend?

Next time you are attempting to add a “secret question to your website”, please think a little harder about whether you yourself could even answer these questions accurately more than once. (Ones that don’t remind me of a newlyweds game show.)

Thank you.

I finally got a chance to download and play with Mozilla Firefox 1.0 PR — yep, I have indeed been hiding under a rock the past few months.

I’m pleased to report that I’m using it right now to update my blog with Blogger, because when the initial Mozilla 1.0 release occured, Mozilla was not supported by Blogger. But that’s ancient history — now the smart chaps at Google are running Blogger, and they wouldn’t dream of such an oversight. In fact, Google search is integrated into Mozilla Firefox.

Another very cool feature that’s been integrated into Firefox is an RSS reader. I think that’s fantastic, because RSS feeds are just too darn useful to have to have a lofty learning curve for much of the browsing masses.

Do you think this is a good reason to party? Then do it — a series of worldwide parties are being planned, just like they were to celebrate the initial Mozilla 1.0 release. In fact, I went to the one here in DC and the turnout wasn’t bad, but it was nothing like the killer release party in San Francisco. I saw a documentary at a convention once about the build-up to the first Mozilla release that documented the San Francisco party, but when I just went looking for its name on Google I didn’t turn up a whole lot. I think it might have been called Code Rush, since there is a documentary about Netscape by this name.

I don’t really have the time or inclination to actually organize a Mozilla party in DC, but I’m going to watch this space and see if 1.0 really will happen again.

When I logged into Amazon.com this weekend, I noticed they jumped onto the blogging bandwagon with their new "Plog" feature. I wasn’t exactly impressed … but interested. Then I managed to get absorbed into the viral crack that Amazon has become. I wrote six or seven reviews and even a So You’d Like To … guide. It was fun, but probably a big waste of time. Oh well.

But one thing that wasn’t a waste of time — reading reviews of the Celestine Prophesy. (I am sort of a fan of this book, but I’m no nut — there are many valid criticisms of this book to be made.) You don’t even have to read them, just check out some of these titles:

Not a *total* waste of time
Utterly worthless
I don’t think so…
Awkward…Painful
Looking to waste your time & your money?
Celestine Prophecy: Or How I Lost My Faith in Humanity
Possibly the worst book I’ve ever read….ever!

And my ALL TIME FAVORITE …

This "Book" "Changed" My "Life"

(I laughed out loud at that one.)