Breaking the habit...

My relationship with AOL started after I graduated from college. I had a fabulous Macintosh courtesy of my mom, and a brand new modem courtesy of my sister, and a shiny AOL floppy disk free-for-nothing. We’re going back a few years here. Time passed and AOL grew to be perceived as part of the evil empire, but still, I’d had that email address since 1995 and didn’t see a huge need for change.

But after a while, I wanted to break away, be one of the cool kids with a cooler email address (or five - why does everyone have a million email addresses - me included - and how do I know which to use??). So, I formulated a plan. Wireless Philadelphia had a greater coverage area than previous and was cheap, so I signed up with them and at the same time got myself a universal forwarding address from Bryn Mawr. After I was sure it would work, AOL would be out. Good thing I waited.

After being very specific with Wireless Philly/Earthlink representatives on the phone that I lived in a first floor rear apartment with no natural light and no direct access to the outside world, and after being assured that my personal signal was very strong, when I got the equipment and set it up, no dice (This took 45 minutes on the phone and a huge amount of connecting and reconnecting the modem. My favorite set-up had me and the modem and the laptop outside in the courtyard. I still couldn’t get a signal and the person on the phone just brushed passed the idea that I wouldn’t be able to use the equipment outside in the rain, snow, cold.).

Speedy connection, or lack thereof aside, a couple of years ago, I got myself a gmail address, and learned how to use that system, which I still do and love. But the spectre of AOL still looms (including those friends and contacts who persist in using the AOL address for me, despite numerous reminders...). My work forwards all of our emails to a personal email account (because the email interface for work is horrific and only to be used as absolutely necessary, in my humble opinion). This is still the AOL address for me, as I don’t want the gmail account to be in any way connected with work. Nor do I want the forwarding address from Bryn Mawr (which forwards to gmail) to be it because I don’t even want to see those work emails in that inbox. But finally, a new solution is ahead.

A few months ago, I finally gave in and purchased a high(er) speed internet connection for home. With this came a bright, shiny new email address! This one can become the work forwarding address. And with this new connection at home, I no longer need the AOL software to act as my ISP. So the plan is that by the end of the month, be rid of AOL.

One of the lingering things about AOL that I used was my list of bookmarks that I've amassed these many years, including my list of blogs. I've saved that list so I can reconstruct it someplace else, but I knew I needed a plan for the blogs. And sure enough, google has one for me: Google Reader. (Yes, I know all of you knew about this already, and are savvy about RSS feeds, etc., but bear with me while I continue my crawl into the 21st century). Last week I put all of my sites with feeds into the Reader and so far, love using it. It's not cumbersome. It cuts down on the ads without minmizing content. And I'm logged in already any time I'm using gmail.

Go, technology! I'm getting there.