Even weirder...who the hell uses the AOL browser for their internet connection?

[ghostsofgiants]

Way too many people based on some of my calls.

[Oeditpus Rex]

1. I'd bet there're still a lot of people who think AOL *is* Teh Internets

[TroglodyteScholar]

2. ...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Who uses A.O.Hell anymore at all?

And have you ever tried getting it off your computer? When my elderly dad decided to move up to the "real" internet he had the worst time getting them to cancel his subscription -- about a half hour on the phone, arguing with some bozo. And then we had to go through all kinds of subdirectories to delete all its little tendrils. AOL is teh evil.

[MountainLaurel]

4. My parents

*hangs head in shame*

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

5. That's nothing- I have clients who still use Juno.

:puke:

[Kali]

6. were you talking to my father?

:rofl: the man is a PhD for fucksake:eyes:

[Withywindle]

7. John McCain. n/t

[Kutjara]

9. McCain can't spell AOL.

If he used it, he'd think he'd been transported to the 23rd Century.

[Withywindle]

12. Can you imagine if he actually figured out

that you could (theoretically) use the Internet to troll for babes? I mean, what if Cindy had some kind of accident, God forbid, and came out of it no longer looking like a #6 Cylon plastic-surgery-artistry-apex....?


(Sssshhhhh. No one tell him that every.single.being in sex chat rooms claiming to be a 15-year-old girl is really an undercover cop. I SO want to see Chris Hansen do the double take!)

[Kutjara]

13. He'd be a menace all right.

The first thing I thought when I heard McCain can't use computers was, "Thank God for one less fuckwit on the Net."

[crimsonblue]

16. I remember the good ole days when cyber sex was between teens

Man...... Those were the days.....

[Kutjara]

8. It simply amazes me...

...that AOL still exists. The first and last time I used it was when I found it on a disk that came boxed-up with the first "Leisure Suit Larry" game. It was crap then, and I can't imagine much has changed since.

[DarkTirade]

14. Oh, it's changed.

It's grown little tendrils in every direction. And every tendril is just as craptastic as the original base. So now instead of being able to screw things up or just being badly designed in one or two ways, it can screw things up and be badly designed in THOUSANDS of ways.

Seriously, their idea of 'putting out a new version' means 'slapping extra crap onto the old version'. And since their old versions weren't very good to begin with... well, you can see where that leads.

[mikeytherat]

18. AOL sucks, but Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards was cool!

mikey_the_rat

[Kutjara]

23. Oh yeah! I remember that game fondly.

Sierra Online was a fun little company that didn't take itself too seriously. They produced a few "Larry" games and some other pretty funny titles, before getting bought, sold, bought again, restructured, bought again, and sold again. They're still going (after a fashion) as "Sierra Entertainment" under the Vivendi Universal umbrella, making dire movie tie-in games like Ghostbusters, The Mummy, and Bourne.

[Raffi Ella]

10. I still have AOL but it's free and I never use it.

[Pierre.Suave]

11. Uhmmm

yeah, you don't?

Damn, why didn't anyone tell me we weren't using AOL anymore... No one ever tells me anything...

:shrug:

[HEyHEY]

15. My parents - it's awful

[RebelOne]

17. I do. I'm just too lazy to switch and notify all my

e-mail contacts of a new e-mail address.

[ghostsofgiants]

28. I'm not talking about email, I'm talking about web browser.

[RebelOne]

43. I 'm not sure what you mean.

I am an AOL subscriber and use their browser and e-mail.

[Phillycat]

19. My mom does.

But she's 60 and doesn't really understand that the "internet" is something separate from her computer. She thinks it lives in there when she launches the AOL icon.

[FloridaJudy]

27. Hey, I'm 61

But I didn't morph into a Luddite when I hit the big 60. Of course, I'd been playing around with computers since the early eighties, back in the old BBS/Usenet days. Not all of us dinosaurs are Dinosaurs.

Though I do miss Leather Goddesses of Phobos. And Zack McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders - taught my son to play that. Now he uses Linux.

[Genevieve]

20. My BF and her 24 yr. old daughter do. nt

[MsTryska]

21. OMG - Someone made me cry yesterday.....

Nothing quite like getting ganged up on by 2 angry old men who don't know shit and are belligerent about t/s.

The complaint - the internet is not working, fix it! No i won't troubleshoot - i've got the best computer possible - it's not my problem!


btw the tears? tears of rage, because the stream of profanity I was holding back apparently had to escape through my eyeballs.

And the clincher? Jackass #1 says that Jackass #2 is a very important business man that is missing appointments because the internet was not working.


Turns out the internet was working - the jackass just couldn't get to his AOLMail. (which is a secure site issue - not an internet issue, per se).

In any case my question is twofold -

A. What kind of "businessman" uses an AOL email address as his professional account?

B. Why are AOL users such belligerent ignorant assholes? Invariably - if it's some angry rude person on the phone that feels self-entitled and imperious - the jackass is using AOL.


/vent

[DS1]

22. Ignorance and AOL go hand in hand

[MsTryska]

42. This is true, but

I should also say, it's unfair of me to paint every aol user with the jackass brush.

I should say AOL users come in two flavors - Ignorant Jackass, and Humbly Ignorant. Because on the flipside there are those who are sweet (usually elderly) and take direction well and are grateful when you can finally get them to their precious AOL.

[NV Whino]

24. One of my clients uses AOL

I send her graphics to look at. She can't see them. I send her pdfs to proofread. She can't open them. I tell it's AOL and she needs to change to something else. Nope, she won't do it. Keeps trying to tell me it's my computer that's wrong.

[MsTryska]

41. Where do they get off?!

gah. they make me want to bang my head against a wall. :banghead:

it's one thing to know nothing, and realize you know nothing and go forth with some humility, but when you know nothing and then believe it's everyone else's fault..well.. i guess that's when you vote republican.

[ghostsofgiants]

26. You work in internet tech support as well?

[MsTryska]

40. yes I do....

24/7 call center and I will be changing to weekend graveyard shift in a couple of weeks. I wonder how the action is on DU during that time period?

[Mutley]

37. Do you work in a hotel?

It could have been me typing that. :D

[MsTryska]

39. Not in a hotel per se...

I work for a company that provides hotels with internet service and support. I work in their call center. we might have to trade notes.

[Mutley]

44. Absolutely!

The hotel I work in provides free Wifi, and WOW do people get upset when it's not working right.

They even flip out if the signal is weak and they have to sit in a different part of the hotel to get a connection.

[MsTryska]

45. Yup....i get that all the time...

the hotels i support have wireless and/or wired in the guest rooms and conf areas, running thru an authentication server and then the router. so plenty of opportunites for failure.

my favorites are still the people who call and are like:

"you're wireless doesn't work, i can't find a signal - you need to reboot the router."
Me: hmm...i just checked the network and everything seems to be up...is your wireless switch turned on?
"there's nothign wrong with my laptop! I just used it in the airport...oh..wait...nevermind it was turned off"
Me: have a nice day and thank you for calling!

[Mutley]

46. Haha!

I love the ones who come down to complain that they can't connect. I ask them if they have a wireless card and they're like, "No. So? You advertise free Wifi, and I should be able to get on the internet!"

[MsTryska]

47. God people kill me....

I can't imagine what it's like for y'all who work for the hotels. Because the attitude I get on the phone is just from that amall section of people that stay at a hotel and need internet. But everything else y'all have to deal with them actually onsite has got to be draining.

I've noticed that certain hotels seem to draw jackasses for days while others seem to draw the nicest people.

[Mutley]

48. Well, I'm one to talk

I didn't know the difference between a hub and a router. But at least I didn't call anyone up and yell at them because I couldn't get my internet to work on two computers. :D

Yeah, we get a lot of crazy people. I have to wonder why everyone is so angry when they are on vacation.

[MsTryska]

50. I know it.

what I can't understand even more is why people would be so angry about internet access when they are on vacation in hawaii!

[FloridaJudy]

25. My sister uses it for e-mail

When I tried to set up a "free" e-mail account with them a few years ago, first thing they asked for my credit card number. Soon as I saw that, I said "I don't think so"...then when I tried to exit their sign-on page, my 'puter froze and I had to re-boot, and then I discovered they'd sent a nasty little tendril into my start-up menu that took me a lot of sweat to get rid of.

It's beyond suck. It's into effing Black Hole territory. That shit can't be legal...oh, wait. I forgot who runs the DOJ.

[Connonym]

29. Sounds like a lot of us have parents in the internet stone age, my mom uses it too

and then she asks me how to do something and I can't answer because AOL isn't like the real internet

[Blue-Jay]

30. My mom uses it, and then bitches about how slow the internet is.

She's almost 70, and doesn't see the point in learning anything new.

[SeattleGirl]

31. My mom had AOL.

She didn't use her computer all that much, and didn't want to spend lots of money for broadband or cable internet service. Couldn't blame her.

[Neshanic]

32. I use a Chinese version of Hello Kitty without any virus blockers. Hey what about my router?

I was on Cox and it worked. Now it's broke.

[Zavulon]

33. My parents, my aunt and uncle, and my sole surviving grandparent.

And all of them bitch about "slow Internet." :rofl:

[TK421]

34. AOL is one big virus itself....I dumped it ages ago

but my one roommate insists on keeping it :eyes:

[leeroysphitz]

35. OK. Fck it. I'll just come right out ad say it.: OLD PEOPLE.

Flame away. Or don't.

[Rabrrrrrr]

36. Plugging the keyboard into my computer creeps me out, so tell me how to connect my iPhone to it

and do I need to call the Internet company to get Internet to my house? I have an automatic garage door opener, so that's why-fye, right?

I'm good to go?

Oh, and my computer is still in the storage bin - is that going to be a problem if I want to downdump my aunt's pictures she put on the AOL?

[PittPoliSci]

38. this idiot i used to work for.

i was like "what the hell is this?" when i came in one day and saw it on the store's computer. he exclaimed proudly "i like AOL!"

idiot.

[Writer]

49. I do! Using my state-of-the-art 14.4K modem.

It's too bad it takes a day to upload my posts, though.

[zanne]

51. Some people are new to computers.

About five years ago, I got my first computer. I was 51 and I had never used one before. I had noone to show me what to do. AOL was the easiest ISP for me, and even that was difficult.

Please stop acting like a bunch of snobs who were born knowing everything about computers.