Saving Stuff in AOL

Thursday, March 1, 2001

click here for printer friendly version

* Please be assured that I will never sell or share
your email addresses with anyone else! I respect your privacy.

Hello Again!

I wish you all happy, healthy backs, or find a great chiropractor.  Enough about back pain, hope you all really are doing well!  Thanks so much to all the kind emails I received; I feel guilty that emailing you all to let you know the situation on the newsletter was like I was looking for sympathy, but it really wasn't my intention.  Thanks for the caring bonus!*****
 
I have had many thoughts about this issue of the Rocky Report. I know that many of you are new to this newsletter, and I hope that you find it enlightening, useful, and entertaining.  I try to deliver information in much the same language as I teach my clients, plain English.  If you have any questions after you read this newsletter, or ideas you'd like me to  elaborate on for future newsletters, please feel free to email me: rockyham@nts-online.net

As I promised last month, I will be mapping out the steps to saving your address book and favorites in America Online, AOL.  This is an internet/email program that I work with, not my preference, but it
has it's good points.  I must tell you that the steps that I will outline today are useful with AOL 5.0 mainly, although the 6.0 version does allow you to save/replace your favorites.  AOL 6.0 has decided to eliminate the save/replace feature for the address book, but I just discovered that they retain your address book for you in their account file on you.  This is convenient but, my oh my, big brother knows all your business, don't they.  I saw this feature in the new CompuServe program, and it also saves your email.  Although, I suppose this is a great help if you lose your computer to a bad hard drive, I still feel a little queasy about it.  I'm forever skeptical about invasions of my privacy and my address book is private to me.  I'm forever mindful of your privacy, as well, as you should be. They keep a copy of all your files on their servers, and that in itself is not so terrible, but if they happen to have any breach in their security, you're a sitting duck.  I know I'm making this way too personal :), so I'll try to lighten up.   I did notice that the save/replace feature for the Favorites is still intact, why they only gave you the ability to print the addresses in 6.0 is a good question for them.  Why not write to them, and tell them you need to save/replace your addresses to a floppy disk just for your own sense of well-being.  I'm sure they'd be glad to know that I am rocking the boat, but if you don't tell them that you are dissatisfied with something, they won't know.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!! :)

Saving your address book in AOL 5.0:

1.  Format the floppy disk.  (refer to previous newsletter for instructions: http://www.rockyreport.com/saving_the_gold.htm )

2.  Open your AOL email program, on the big toolbar, click on  Mail Center, and in the menu that comes down, click on Address Book.

3.  In the lower right corner, you'll see "SAVE/REPLACE".  Be sure you have your formatted floppy disk in the floppy drive, and click on Save/replace.

4.  At the bottom of the page that pops up, you'll see "Select an  option, then click OK:  You click on "Save the Address Book for your current screen name".   This will already have a dot in the circle, but just in case, you'll now know it's right to have the dot there.  Then, click OK. (If you have several screen names, you'll have to do this on all the names, if the addresses vary, to have a back-up copy of those address books, as well.)

5.  Now the Save Folder box pops up.  You click in the Save in white bar, and click on 3 1/2 Floppy(A:).  This will point the saving procedure to the floppy disk.  You will notice that the subject in the "File name" is Address Book.  This is right, and then you click "Save".  This will save your address book for future restore purposes from the disk.  You're done saving; it's on that disk safe and sound.  Doesn't that feel better to know that you will never have to worry about lost addresses or having to re-enter all that information again.  You can just restore the names from the floppy disk if you change computers, or if something sad happens to your amazing machine. :) 

6.  You might even want to save the addresses on a second formatted floppy disk to feel even more secure.  You can also use the same disks to Save/replace your favorites.  This information doesn't take up too much room. 

Saving your Favorites in AOL 5.0 (and 6.0 favorites located in a different place on the 6.0 toolbar, but steps are the same)

1.  Leave the same formatted floppy disk in the drive, and click on "Favorites" on the toolbar, and then "favorite places".

2.  As before, look in the bottom right corner for the "Save/replace" feature, click on it.  In the page that pops up, at the bottom, under select an option, choose "Save the Favorite Places for your current
screen name" and then click OK.  (As before, if you have many screen names, you will have to do this on each screen name.)

3.  In the Save Folder box, click in the white bar (save in bar) adjacent to the words Save In, and click on 3 1/2 floppy (A:).  You will see Address book.pfc in the large white area, and you will see Favorite Places in the File Name bar.  Click Save.  You're done.  Wasn't that easy!  You needed a little guide to do it, and now you know a great tool to save yourself a lot of time.

I'll write again in the next couple of days to tell you the steps to Replace the files for the Address book, and the favorites in the event you need to.  I will include the steps to update your save files when you add favorite places, and update new addresses in your address book.  

A wise man, named Bob McElwain (www.sitetipsandtricks.com ) site is gone, now :(
told me that consistency is the key to a good newsletter.  I hope that my life problems have not dampened anyone's enthusiasm, my intentions are to help you.  I will try to be more consistent with my delivery of the newsletter.  Life just keeps happenin', doesn't it.  Thank you all for your patience.  Maybe my two-part newsletters will make you all feel like you are getting a real value!

Next Edition:  Restoring and Updating Stuff in AOL

I appreciate all of you.  Hope these have been helpful hints for you.  Remember that I will have all these monthly issues of my newsletter available at my websites, along with other information:

http://www.rockyreport.com

And

http://www.internetguideandmore.com

Thanks for reading!

If you know of anyone who would like to
receive this newsletter, tell them to send
a blank email to:

subscribe@rockyreport.com

I appreciate your asking for the newsletter, but
if you would like to unsubscribe for any reason,
send a blank email to:

unsubscribe@rockyreport.com

TELL A FRIEND! THANKS!