Living with your Aol Part 1 (Settings)

Written by:  Dan Daily 

Hi Gang!

If anyone has a topic they want covered, Please let me know.

This week we will start talking about the settings to use for your AOL 4/5, to make it run faster, longer between bumps, and just plain easier to get along with.

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You might want to print this out for future reference.  Now, where do I start?  Wow, a big bite here, I must be nuts.

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Your Modem Settings;

If you are already getting reliable high connect speeds, you can skip this section, but review it anyway.

Let's first find out what kind of modem you have.  To do this, exit, or minimize AOL and right click on "My Computer."  Click on properties/device manager/ modem.  This will give you the  Windows version of what your modem is.  Write it down.

Now Let's See What AOL Thinks It Is.

The first thing to do is to determine if AOL has your proper modem as your default.  To check this, at the sign on screen, click on setup, check the "Add or change a modem" box.

Click on expert setup, and click the devices (modem) tab.  Your modem should appear highlighted.  Double click on it, if it's not the right modem, or a generic modem, scroll through the list that just came up.  If your exact modem is not listed, stay with the generic that AOL chose in the first place.

If you find your exact modem on the list, double click on it.

If you already had the right modem listed, verify the port, (which must be correct, or it wouldn't work anyway).

Speaker should be set to normal.  Now the port speed, make sure it is correct.  Some tell you with a 56k modem it should be set at 115400, it's up to you.  You can't connect at that speed anyway, I use 57,600.  If you have a 33,600 modem, I recommend the 38,600 modem setting, most of these modems can run at this speed.

If you made no changes, or if you did; click the OK button.  If you had to change anything, make the new modem/settings the default by clicking the "set default" button on the next screen.

While at this screen, click the "Locations" tab.

All your access phone numbers are now listed, you have to double click on each of these and change them to your new settings.  I recommend doing just one-first, to make sure it'll work if any changes had to be made.

Then do all the rest.  Any new access numbers you add will take the new default automatically but, you have to manually change the one's that you already have.

If you made no changes, check them anyway to be sure your modem is listed for them, and that their port speeds are correct. (Important)

Tip;  Change these numbers to "one try."  I have each number listed separately, I find if a number is busy, I can cancel it and try the next far faster than AOL does it.

Now that this is done, sign on, check your connect speeds, if you are running a 56k modem, you should expect connects at between 52, and 54,700.  I won't run anything under 52.  These numbers don't actually represent your speeds, they tell you the maximum speed your modem, and the dial up connection you called, agree on.  This has nothing to do with Aol per se.

The higher the number, the greatest speed "Potential" you have.  These modem settings are your key to speed on AOL, doing everything else means nothing if your connect speeds aren't there.

My old computer had a 33,600 modem in it and always connects at 38,400, always.  It did a pretty respectable job.

.You Are Not Done Yet

Now check each of your access numbers for speed.  I would recommend between 3 and 5 am. Eastern.  I know what your saying; but the lines are empty so that is the best time to check your equipment.

Those are the hours I do 90% of my web research for my joke list.  Believe me, I know the best hours.

I have 10 access numbers, I have 2, that I normally use.  Check your numbers.  If it's busy during peak times, have your number two right below it.  This is so key.  REALLY!

Once you find out your fastest numbers, rearrange your sign on numbers, in order.  Use the instructions from above.  All you have to do to move a number is drag up and drop.  Easy.

.My AOL Preferences Screen;

This is where you get AOL to do what you want, and to be specifically yours.  I call it the how to live with AOL screens.  LOL

.The General Screen

The boxes that should be checked are as follows:  The notify me of network news; Save text with line breaks, (this allows you to save AOL mail in AOL format).  Enable event sounds, and enable chat room sounds.

Don't check the auto scroll documents screen, you won't be able to read your mail, as it will fly by.  Also; warning of mail to be sent.  If you send auto AOL sessions, you might want to check this.  But in my case, I keep mail in the waiting to be sent folder, as I assemble it.  So it's not really ready to go out until it's done.

That popup is very annoying to me.

.Toolbar

This screen is self explanatory, except for the clear History trail box.  If this box is checked, AOL will clear your URL history after each switch of screen name, or sign off.  History trail?

Not the Windows history folder.  It clears you upper bar, (the search words, keywords, web addresses bar)

The advantage of keeping the history is that if you want to go back to a web site, you don't have to search for the hot link, or retype the URL, you only need to click the down arrow, and POOF, there are all the places you've been.  Just click on the one you want.  I like that.  Of course, the disadvantage is if you surf a lot, you'll have tons of them listed.  Most confusing.

.Mail Screen

The Mail Preferences screen is one of the key screens to keep AOL from driving you crazy.  I will go over each entry:

Confirm mail after it has been sent

Check this one.  AOL can be quirky;  I learned about this the hard way.  You could get bumped and not know it, don't assume your mail got sent.  This makes AOL get a confirmation to tell you your mail indeed did get delivered.

.Close Mail after it's been sent

Check this one:  I see no reason to keep looking at an email after it's been sent.  If you want to send to multiple addresses, you can do it on the original.  It's much quicker this way, and saves steps.  Saving steps = Speed.

.Confirm when mail is marked to send later

Check this one:  Again back to the AOL being quirky, this informs you that your send later command did in fact work, or at the least, you pushed the right button.  Nothing worse than spending a lot of time on an email, and losing it for this reason.  There are enough other reasons to lose it.  LOL

.Retain all mail I send in my Personal Filing Cabinet

I don't have this checked:  This clutters up your PFC needlessly, it's just as easy to check your "sent mail" under the "Mail Center" button on the top left.

.Retain all mail I read in my Personal Filing Cabinet

Check this one, this option allows you to clear your mailbox quickly, and read some of the email at a later time.  I couldn't live without this one.  If you want to delete these you can delete your email one at a time, or highlight the top one, scroll to the bottom, hold your shift key and click on the bottom one, they will all highlight, click delete, and they're all gone quick and easy.  Quick and Easy = Speed.

.Perform a spell check before sending mail

I don't have this one checked, may phrases will trip your spell checker constantly.  I manually do a spell check (click the ABC button on the email) just before I send it out.  Again, if you assemble email like I do, in segments, it's a pain to have it spell check every time you do a section and save it.  Plus; the spell checker on auto, checks your addresses as words.  Doing it manually, allows you to place your cursor on the body of the email.  When you click the ABC button, the spell check will start from where your cursor was.  No more checking screen names.

.Use White Mail Headers

Check this one:  If you send an email out to a lot of people, with a background, the white headers makes it much easier to differentiate between the header and the body of the email.  Since the addresses are in Arial font/10 size, and not bold they can be very hard to read.

.Show addresses as hyperlinks

Don't check:  I don't really understand this one at all, too many underlines drive me crazy.  Just check this one, and you'll see exactly what I mean.

.Display next message when current message is deleted.

Check this one:  This only became an option on AOL5.  AOL4 always did this automatically.  When reading mail, you click delete, and the next email pops up when this is checked.  Otherwise you have to delete it, and click on the next one to bring it up.  This option saves a lot of time and clicks.  Saving a lot of time and clicks, = Speed.

.Use AOL/Internet style quoting

Check the AOL style.  Unless you know why you don't want it.  We are on AOL after all.

WWW

This we will cover in a separate section; this also applies to non AOL folks.  Anyone running Internet Explorer.

.Chat Preferences

The only two to check here are the Alphabetize the member list, and the enable chat room sounds boxes.

The two notify options will drive you crazy in a chat room.  As will the double spacing option.

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Download Preferences

Display Images files on download

Check this box:  This enables AOL to show you the picture you just downloaded as soon as it's finished downloading.  You don't have to go find it.  This saves time... and you know what saving time means.  LOL

.Automatically decompress files at sign-off

Check this box:  If you download a zip file, this allows AOL to automatically unzip the file when you sign off of AOL.  Newer versions will allow you to do this on the fly.

.Delete Zip files after decompression

Check this box:  After decompressing the zip file, this will delete the original zip.  This is important because AOL will not see these files, they will just stack up.  To get rid of them you will have to search for them.  Let AOL handle it automatically.

.Retain information about my last ----- downloads.

This one is up to you, if you flush your PFC every day, you don't need this option checked as it's not doing you any good anyway.

.Use this directory as default for downloads

I have mentioned this in the past:  It's default is set for your AOL download file.  Make a new download file for yourself, and use the browse button to find it.  Keep your download information off AOL.  This will insure you don't lose your data in the event of a major AOL crash.

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Graphics Viewing Preferences

Maximum disk space to use for online art

I keep my setting at 10 megs.  The default is 20.  Online art is AOL screens; they are all stored in this file.  This acts as a Temporary Internet folder for your AOL screens, instead of web pages.

The more screens you find yourself using, i.e., news, chatroom, international, etc.  The larger this value should be.  But, the smaller it is, the less time AOL spends searching it.  If you only use a few AOL screens, make this file smaller.  It saves disk space, and your screens will load faster.  There's that word again; I like faster.

.Display Images files on download

As before, check this box.

.Notify before opening mail containing pictures

Leave this blank, it'll drive you crazy.

.Present resizing options when inserting pictures in e-mail

Check this box, it offers you a way to make pictures that are two large to fit in an email, smaller.

.JPEG compression quality; 100%

Leave this setting alone.  100% is the slowest load, but also the clearest picture.  Sometimes you can't compromise.

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That's it for this time; next time we'll go over the rest of them, the following week, we'll tweak up your WWW, Internet settings.