Computer Lament

The BBQ Pit
1

My eeevil AOL decided to get corrupted on me. Now my Favorite Places and Filing Cabinet are blank. Completely blank. No folders, links, emails, files, nothing.

I am pissed and frustrated beyond belief.

I keep talking to AOL techs, who tell me that the files are not recoverable. Why, I do not know, but it makes me angrier.

My passwords and important emails were in that filing cabinet.

I had vital links in my Favorites folder.

It’s all gone now.

I feel like my house has burnt down.

If there are any really smart computer people on here, I would appreciate any help, but for now I just want to say,

FUCK.

There was too much information gone. Too many files. I feel like someone’s poked out my eyes. Next thing you know my fucking buddy list will decide it doesn’t love me anymore and fly away, too. Dammit.

And FUCK myself. I suck. I should have made backup, which seems pointless because when I try to load new links into the Fave Places folder, they don’t stay anyway. It’s like nailing Jello to a tree. Still…I suck.

My brother “accidentally” deleted my entire downloads folder just last month, and I thought that was bad.

Dammit dammit dammit.

I’m going to wander off to bed and cry now…

2

You’re the one that’s using AOL. You should be pissed off at yourself, wanker.

3

You shouldn’t feel to badly about the situation, you know.
If you use AOL you should expect it to suck like a cheap whore behind a Denny’s after the bars let out on a Saturday night.

AOL sucks. If you’re tired of having and ISP that sucks, you should get someone other than AOL. Trust me, they and their retarded IMAP servers will not miss you. But when an Alien intelligence comes to Earth, and has determined that our planet is the source of the annoying spam, and has decided to wipe out the entire species of “AOLers” you will be glad you left.

Even if that doesn’t happen, you can be damn sure that you will be glad that you left in any case, since AOL sucks.

Did I mention that AOL sucks? Becuase I would hate to think that there is someone out there who doesn’t know that
AOL sucks.

It’s actually kinda funny, because some idjit will always come out and say “Hey! My Gramma uses AOL!”
Really? Didn’t you tell her it sucks? If not you’re doing your Gramma a grave disservice.

So, just for the record, AOL sucks. Ditch them. Get DSL or Cable, it’s the only way to go.

PS. Fuck AOL. They suck.

4

Lexicon, you forgot to say AOL sucks

5

Whoops! My bad.

I forgot to mention that

AOL FUCKIN’ BLOODY SUCKS!

6

Nice, y’all. Welfy’s upset, and the best you can do is “It’s all your own damn fault?” Put aside your AOL-bashing for ONCE. Sheesh.

hugs Welfy Sorry, hon.

7

I agree, Amy. I think y’all are missing the point here. It’s not about AOL, it’s about Welfy.

Welfy is heartbroken. I know if I could help her I would. All I can do is tell her how sad I feel for her, and to just take a deep breath and start over - any way you can. And backup your files, little one. Back them up before this happens again.

8

Welfy,

If it’s any consolation, I use AOL and Earthlink. AOL is used via Bring Your Own Access so it’s more of a social thing for me. I use it mainly for certain credit card stuff and of course my chat room and a few friends here on the SDMB.

Anyhow, in mid December I completely lost my main computer due to a Win 2000 problem and a BIOS update I needed. Really screwed me over.

Well, I had all my Earthlink and even my AOL files backed up…guess what, I can’t access my AOL files! I got my Outlook up and running like I didn’t miss a beat but all my emails, from seven accounts on AOL are stuffed in a way I can’t get…these emails date back to March of 2000, many of which I really would like to access.

I probably can access them somehow but I haven’t spent the time to do so. So, if it helps you any, I have email from last year I wish I could still access but can’t.

It will get better as I have done this before without a back up. Next time you will know to back up your hard drive and often. But it does get better.

9

Sorry to hear about your email, Welfy. It sucks bad to lose potentially irreplaceable school stuff, work stuff, family stuff. I do, however, have to agree with the posters who said “Get a different ISP.” I work in the Information Services department of a university, and email is the number one most important application we support. Backups are made nightly with mail directories the first priority. I think you will find the same attitude in the business world.

Why AOL can’t restore mail I can’t explain, but if you do look for another provider be sure to ask them how they would restore such files to your account. I’ve always considered AOL a ‘toy’ ISP, and this only reinforces that feeling.

I hope you can recover the important stuff…

-mdf

10

Hey Falc, I never said “It’s your own damn fault.” If you want to put something in my mouth, make it a glazed donut instead of words.

While it is unfortunate that Welfy got her files fucked with, the fact remains that AOL is a shitty service. Further, these files probably got fucked up because AOL is a shitty service, and this is only one of the myriad things that make it so.

I can hug Welfy and hand her a kleenex with the best of you. However, I would prefer to try to help her avoid this in the future instead.

<heads up, sweeping generalization coming up>
I know that you women are all about empathy and you don’t want your problems solved, but would rather have someone listen to you bitch about them and butter your ass to make you feel better. I just can’t do that, sorry. If someone posts something like this, and comes right out and asks for help, like so:

then I can’t help but offer a realistic solution instead of boo-hooing and crying about the situation like a little girl with a skinned fuckin’ knee. When I said:

I was responding to the above plea for help. And this was the only solution for the problem she had.

The only reason I didn’t advise welfy to backup her files like you did, Anthracite, is because of this:

So you see, she already knew how futile that is with a service, once again, as shitty as AOL. I presented a rational solution:
Not satisfied with your ISP? Try a different one!

You know, I think it’s y’all who are missing the point, not me.

11

mdf,

Generally an ISP wont guarantee anything for you. Most email programs, that I know of, default to take the email off server and then it’s stored on your local hard drive much like AOL’s email services. Also, a lot of the time there is a storage limit as to what people can leave on an email box. I don’t know that AOL or anyone else can guarantee or even state they keep email for you.

Not to poopoo what you said but in my dealings, I don’t know of an ISP that will back up your email for you, I believe this to be a responsibility of the person.

If there is such a thing, I would personally like to know as I am in the tech industry and do web pages as well and always looking out for services for clients. Also, I would be a little concerned for privacy if a place did a regular back up email you have read…

Well anyhow, Welfy, it does get better and I know you are pissed.

12

Yo Lexicon buddy…I know you and I know whom you work for…but that’s a different story.

Anyhow, any person on AOL can still launch Internet Explorer or Netscrape and store their favorite places there. Obviously they can’t store favorites within AOL’s service there but there are ways around the service when it comes to areas outside AOL.

So my friend, before you knock her on that issue with regards to AOL, know where she can turn to make it easier to back up her favorites like The Straight Dope and other places she frequents by simply using IE or Netscrape as her regular browser.

She can easily back up her internet favorites from there.

Bashing AOL is not solving the problem, it’s knowing how to work with it that makes all the difference.

As for Welfy finding all that she lost, it’s gone my friend, I hate to say it.

13

Well, gee, Lex. If you KNOW women prefer empathy, why the fuck would you not offer some? Welfy was asking, IMO, for help on getting the files she HAD back, not people telling her that “well, this wouldn’t happen if you had a better ISP.” (And yes, I’m paraphrasing. I wouldn’t DREAM of putting words in your mouth, especially since your head is so far up your ass.)

14

Look, saying this would have actually been implying “It’s your own damn fault,” like Falcon said I did. And I didn’t. Telling Welfy that she should have known how to work with it would have been pretty dick, even in my book. Even though it’s true, I have learned that you can’t always tell people to RTFM as a solution. I still say that the best course of action would be to get with another ISP. Everything you said about backing up files in another browser was dead on. However, Welfy said that she already knew she should have done that. That’s why I didn’t mention it. But thanks anyway.

And moving right along to Falcon, whom I will consider my friend till the day I die:

Because, like the Speedo rack at the big and tall shop, I think it’s a pointless waste of time, that’s why.

I don’t really think so. Welfy isn’t stupid, right? Why would she ask for help with this when she “keep(s) talking to AOL techs, who tell me that the files are not recoverable.”? See, you’re the one who missed the point, but I’m the one with my head up my ass. Okey-dokey.
And just a final PS to get back with techchick68;

What are you talking about? What are you getting at? What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Liz? Your pills…?

15

Oh, I dunno, Lex…possibly because AOL techs are morons, and the people here are smarter? Just a thought.

(And okay, I laughed at the Speedo comment. ;))

16

Hey, AOL techs may be morons, that’s just a given. However, with something like this, it falls under “50,000 screaming chinese Elvis fans can’t be wrong…”
you know what I mean?

And thanks for trying to slap me around a bit, I need it once in a while, and besides, you’re so damn sexy when you’re angry.

17

Ummm, Lex, that was no cut down, get off your high horse would you? I know where you work, or worked, I know that you have more knowledge than probably 90% of the people that enter this realm when it comes to computers. So, know I didn’t mean any jab at you and I should have not said that.

Okay, so the “pills” thing is pretty low…in fact really low. For that remark, I will dismiss any further contact with you in this thread or many others. Guess certain people have gotten under your skin as well…

FTR, I don’t take medications, I have retired the thought of ever taking any kind of anti depressants since last July…and for that I will kindly leave this thread and never discuss this with you or anyone else again because my mental health or my need to take or not take medication is none of your fucking business. GOD the things people will say.

18

Awww Lex, you sweetie. And try is right…I know I could never outflame you, hon. :wink:

And just because, another hug for Welfy.

19

*Originally posted by techchick68 *

True, using POP3 or IMAP, read mail is your responsibility. I’ve only used AOL for a short trial period, so I’ve never had occasion to try a local backup of such things as read mail, address books and so on.

Earlier you said:

And later said:

Well, on reflection, I should say I haven’t either, but one can always ask. Apparently AOL uses a local format for mail storage that is useless for local restores. Is this the mark of a serious ISP? If you can’t be successful even when you are trying to be responsible…

Up until about a year ago, when we moved to Lotus Notes ::hack! ptui!:: for mail, all of our mail servers were UNIX based. For users who didn’t use ‘pretty mail’ (Netscape, IE, Eudora…), but used a UNIX mail client like pine or elm, read mail is stored in a file in the users home directory. If the user didn’t immediately delete messages, but left them through the next backup cycle, the read mail as well as the incoming, unread mail made it onto a tape. We kept backups at least a year. And yes, I have restored mail that old for a user. Notes gets a nightly backup, also. We get lots of restore requests for Notes mail. I guess ivory tower living has it’s advantages. :cool:

I second that.

20

Get Norton Utilities 2001. They have an Unerase feature which can get back many things that were accidentally deleted. It is like gold to me. And… start backing up your files. It is essential. Good luck to you.

While AOL does suck, you should expect that your files will not go away on their own.