Aol 8, The Best Aol Ever! Say it Ain't So!

Written by:  Dan Daily 

Hi Gang!

Long Time No See!

You miss me?  Well I'm back.  As you know, the ISP wars are starting up again.  Aol has the new Aol 8 as it's offering.  Well gang, this one is great!  You all know how critical I am of Aol.  I've been still using 5, but I could see the potential for this new 8.  I've been testing it and testing it.  While nothing is perfect, this is really close and it's about time!  Those of you not on Aol, might want to read this.

So, Let's Go!

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Gosh, I don't really know where to start: Instead of doing the familiar pro section, then con section, I'm going to go over each feature one by one, both pro and con.  AOL 8 is actually a polished version of 7 with additions.  So don't expect a radical change.

Customizable Welcome Screen

The new welcome screen gives you six choices.  It's about time!  Aol makes a big deal of this, but actually, only 5 custom one click links change from screen to screen.  Things like TV listings, Stock Listings, Games etc.  Each screen (you have a choice of six) changes these links according to  the theme of the screen and you can change them at any time.  I would have preferred to be able to add my own custom links, but, all in all, they are consistent and useful.

"Top News" sits in the center and flips from story to story with graphics and is scrollable.  Eh, take it or leave it.  Three days worth of weather are shown according to your city and a full forecast is available just by clicking on it as is your local news.  Very nice.  My local news could really use some work.  There has to be more then four or five local stories of interest in Buffalo.  You listening AOL?

I find the overall color scheme of blue tones to be very nice.  If you don't like blue, I guess your SOL.  I find the Welcome screen to be a bit busy.  Too busy, especially if your used to AOL 5 like I am.  Like anything new, you just get used to it.

Your Filing Cabinet

Like Aol 7, the filing cabinet is very nice.  All your stored emails can be categorized just about any way you can think of.  All my disclaimers for the Danny's Daily's mailing list are now easily sort able.  I like that.  A manage button offers options to compact, backup and restore the PFC.  More on backup later.  The Filing Cabinet was always very easy to use and this is no exception.

The Address Book

While the address book is nice, it consumes more space then it really needs.  A screen showing the screen names at the bottom of a selected category can't be edited, you have to click an edit key to do that so what's the point of showing them?  Aol 5's was simpler but it's OK.

You still can't backup your address book to your hard drive and you all know how I feel about that!  What's to do?  Obviously this just ISN'T going to change so I finally got off my dead butt and wrote a DOS macro.  This makes backing up the entire AOL organize folder a one click affair from the system tray.  What are you gonna do...  More on that below.

HTML Email

AOL finally has this down pat!  It works just great!  I've done extensive testing with my Internet mailing list and for the most part, those using HTML email clients (like who doesn't anymore?) see all the embedded backgrounds and moving animations in emails sent by 8.  Reverse testing shows it reads HTML flawlessly.  Good Job!

Another nice feature is pulling up the email listing screens.  I hate clicking more then I have to, I just Hate It!  Now, by clicking on the New Mail icon, the new email listing screen pops up whether you have any new mail or not.  From there you can click on the old mail tab, or the sent mail tab.  This saves you from having to go through the menus at the top menu bar.  I LOVE that!  Also from this screen is a mail options button; you can do anything you can think of for mail from there, including pulling up your address book:  Again, saving you from having to go to the top menu bar!  I LOVE that too!  And there is a sorting button as well:  It allows you to sort you new mail by category.  Also, if you receive more emails while the "New Mail" screen is loaded, they just pop up in it and you hear a little click.  You don't have to refresh the screen any longer.  I Really LOVE that!

On the main email listing screen, as in AOL 7, is a button to report spam without having to open the email.  A Nice feature if AOL reads the reports.  Also, is a button to report spam and block the email address.  That's nice, but I'd like to be able to highlight whole groups of email; block and report them all at one time.  Now THAT would be the best!

All in all, this is by far the best email system I've seen anywhere and I've seen a lot!

AOL has truly grown up.

AOL Radio

A new feature that gives you a radio button.  This is user definable so you can make a custom category of the type of music you like.  Minimize it and it'll play music for you while your working.  Nice feature?  I guess so but the sound quality is NOTHING to brag about.  A little better then AM radio I'd guess:  I didn't buy Monsoon Planer speakers to listen to AM radio.  No thanks, I'll stick to my CD Rom drive but it's not bad.

Favorite Links

This is unchanged from Aol7.  No reason to change it.  If you use the AOL front end of the browser, which I don't recommend, it's works great and is simple to use.

Parental Controls

While AOL flaunts this as being the easiest to use ever; I always thought is was easy to use anyway, so what's to comment on?

Neato Features

If you have an always on connection (Cable or DSL) there is what's called the AOL companion.  This has a little popup on your screen at boot up.  It's a little box with side pop out menus that you can read the news from.  There's a menu for all your screen names showing how many new emails you have and how many buddy's are online.  It also gives you the present temperature which you can click to give you your full local weather report.  All without even opening up AOL at all.  Really Neato!

Sounds in IM's

I haven't tested this "feature" but apparently you can have a custom sound when you IM someone.  I don't think I'd like to listen to someone farting every time they IM me, but I can see this "feature" is designed for the kids.  Well, OK.  I'm not an IM'r anyway.  What ever.

My Biggest Bitch

Screen Resolution:  I have a 19 inch monitor that is set at 1024x768.  This causes all the screens in AOL to be squished and some things are plain not there.  It wouldn't be a big deal except the Welcome Screen can't be resized.  This problem exists in all versions of AOL.  Fully 40% of Internet surfers use this resolution on their monitors!  AOL!  It's time to fix this!!!

Potential Problems

With all good things, there are also problems that can pop up.

AOL 8 seems to use more system resources then 5 or 7 did.  Maybe 1 or 2% more.  It wouldn't be a big deal but this AOL is fussy:  Unlike AOL5, if you dip down into the lower 40's high 30's, which on my machine is VERY common, she may not want to exit for you.  Cntrl/Alt/Del "end the task" may lock up your computer instead of just shutting the program down.

The AOL companion really exacerbates this problem considerably:  Like I said earlier, AOL companion is for those with broadband.  Companion uses almost the same amount of system resources as AOL does by itself:  If you have broadband and are running the usual suite of programs; Terminator, Zone Alarm, Popup Stopper and Ad Subtract, you can't have companion and AOL running at the same time.  If you do and start another program, (and who doesn't) you're setting yourself up for a freeze.  I usually have AOL running in the background all the time so this is a real problem for me.  Other than Terminator, you MUST have the others running so what's the point of companion?  In all fairness though, I have a couple of huge programs running at startup for my editor duties, this may just be my problem and not affect you at all.

Either way, you'll want to really get a handle on your startup programs or switch to Windows XP.  XP doesn't have resource limitations, it just has other problems.  LOL  But, I might just upgrade to it for this reason.

Backing Up Your Address Book

There is no way to do this from AOL itself.  You all know how much I hate that!  But, this issue obviously isn't going to be addressed by AOL so you have to address it.  As you know, your AOL organize folder contains your address book, your Filing Cabinet and your Favorite Places for all of your screen names.  If you back this folder up, there is no reason to back up your Filing Cabinet or Favorite Places separately.  Additionally, you can take a new dumb copy of AOL and by copying in the organize folder have it just how it was when you last used it.  Have to reinstall the program?  No problem!

How Do You Do It?

I wrote a simple DOS level script as a .bat file.  A bat file when clicked, acts as a mini program and executes as a program would:  Instantly.  If you'd like a copy of it and simple instructions on how to install it  Just  Click Here

Conclusion

Despite AOL's present struggles and failures in the past, (remember AOL 6?) AOL has grown up.  It's really not for newbies anymore.  AOL 8 is a very well thought out mature program.  Just looking at it confirms that.  There is almost nothing it can't do no matter what you ask of it.  The menus are laid out in a very simple logical way.  Cross menus on various screens keep accessing the upper menu bar to a bare minimum.  I like that.

While some people ridicule and laugh at AOL, they always have.  I find AOL content to be rich, plentiful and cover a broad range of topics.  Some people think AOL IS the Internet.  I'm not surprised.  So let them laugh; just remember, there is a reason AOL has 34 million members.  AOL 8 will go a long way in keeping them.  Actually, they're not laughing anymore.  If fact, all the other ISP's are trying to emulate AOL.  While MSN is gaining some ground, their membership numbers are pathetic compared to AOL.  Wanna know a dirty little secret?  Almost everyone who "laughs," secretly has an AOL account.  Even on my lists!

While nothing can be everything for everybody, AOL 8 has a nice mix for anybody.

If you have a high speed connection already?  14.95 a month for AOL is just icing on the cake.

I've been with AOL since AOL2.  I've stuck with them through thick and thin.  

AOL 8?  "I Only Have Eyes For You!"

I Highly Recommend It!