Jewish World Review August 12, 2003 / 14 Menachem-Av, 5763

Balky AOL 8.0 easily replaced by past version; deleting selected Web site addresses in the drop-down list; clicking on e-mail hyperlink message when using Outlook Express and Internet Explorer, has to minimize the Outlook Express window in order to view the site

By James Coates

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | (KRT) Q. Every time I try to download AOL 8.0, I get a message that states AOL cannot find my modem, and then the computer freezes. When I try to download AOL 8.0, it only completes to 92 percent. I have tried everything AOL and Hewlett-Packard have suggested on my HP Pavilion 9686C.

I have closed all programs, deleted global.org, reinstalled the modem (Conexant Soft56K data/fax PCI modem), rebooted the computer with the HP system recovery disc and application disc, deleted AOL 7.0 and then installed AOL 8.0, and I still get the same message, and the computer freezes.

I can delete and reinstall AOL 7.0 without any trouble. I would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you.

Bud Rose@aol.com

A. Your tale of woe over AOL 8.0 is particularly apt right now--America Online executives are pushing hard with plans to release AOL 9.0, which they say is the most significant update ever to the world famous "You've Got Mail" software. I can make one solid prediction about what will happen when AOL 9.0 ships: There will be notes to this column from folks like you, only with AOL 9.0 not loading instead of AOL 8.0.

Since the beginning of America Online there have been customers (maybe in large numbers) whose computers just couldn't digest the proprietary software. The reason they can't get it to work is that there is something in the complex AOL software that cannot coexist with something in the complex operating system and hardware drivers on the victim's machine.

The reality is that imponderable problems can arise due to conflicts somewhere among the 30 million lines of code in Windows XP and the millions of lines of software instructions cobbled into the AOL system over the past decade of upgrades to 8.0 from 1.0.

When Steve Case was chief executive at AOL, he often told me that these errors are "anecdotal" anomalies and, while regrettable, insolvable.

I imagine getting called an "anecdote" galls you as much as it galls me, eh, Mr. R?

But since you have had your chops busted by technical support people at AOL and HP, I suggest you take a common-sense approach and just stop fretting about downloading AOL 8.0 and stick with the sturdy AOL 7.0.

As most AOL users know all too well, the company continually updates the software with those annoying downloads that happen without the customer's consent when signing off. Over time your version 7.0 will acquire most of the worthwhile new stuff anyway without any need for long downloads. I have a computer that started with AOL 5.0 that has been gradually updated by these continual sign-off downloads until it boasts the lion's share of all the hot new video and radio features that AOL 8.0 offers anyway.

So here's my reluctant advice. Stick to 7.0 right now, and then when 9.0 is released try it, because there always is a chance that whatever is messing you up with 8.0 will not affect 9.0.

Q. How can I delete selected Web site addresses in the drop-down list I get when I click on the down arrow at the right end of the address bar in the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser? Where are these addresses stored? I would appreciate a reply at your earliest convenience.

Balkrishnan Subramanian, Youngstown, Ohio

A. I understand your sense of urgency because I have experienced it also when doing stuff like shopping for the missus' birthday gift and not wanting her to see that I was shopping for Diamonique stuff on www.qvc.com instead of proper jewelry at www.tiffany.com.

Your note gives me a chance also to tout a great new feature being added to the Google search engine that will let users easily erase all past search terms they used in a similar drop-down menu built in to Google. So you get two cloaks for the price of one, starting with the Web browser itself.

It's easy enough to clear the history from that Web browser by remembering at the end of a session to click on Tools and Internet Options in the browser. This produces a menu with a button to click to purge the history of past sites visited.

Also, it is possible to turn on and off the Auto Complete feature that collects these problematic lists in the first place. Go back to Internet Options, and this time pick the Content tab and then click the Auto Complete box. This opens a menu to stop keeping past Web addresses as well as to halt automatically supplying passwords and filling in things like your name and e-mail address on forms at Web pages. Some of this stuff, of course, is useful, but you can always restore it.

Now on to how to shut down the same kind of telltale drop-down data in the Google search engine.

The company is offering Google Toolbar Beta 2.0, a trial version of its plug-in for the Internet Explorer software that lets one click an "options" box and order all history of past search terms erased whenever Google is closed.

This beta also includes an impressive pop-up-ad stopper and a way to easily set up one's own Web log, or blog.

You can get the beta by going to http://toolbar.google.com. It's just the thing when you're shopping for rhinestones and hinting at diamonds.

Q. Whenever I click on a hyperlink within an e-mail message using Outlook Express and Internet Explorer, I have to minimize the Outlook Express window in order to view the site. How can I bring the site to the front? Thanks for your help!

Tony Nespole @comcast.net.

A. Your fix is to change the settings that determine what sort of window is used when Internet Explorer is run. Yours, it would seem, somehow got changed from the default setting to open in a "Normal Window" to the option in which the browser comes up in a "Minimized Window." You want to set it up so the browser comes up with its display either maximized or set back to normal.

The switches for how program windows open when the software is run are set in the Properties menu for their icons. So find the blue, lazy E icon for the Microsoft Internet Explorer on your desktop or in the Start menu and give it a right-click and pick Properties in the pop-up list.

Look in the next display for the listing for Run, and then use the click arrow on the right to change the current setting of "Minimized" or "Normal Window" now selected on your machine to "Maximized." The browser displays now should fill the screen when opened by clicking on links included in the text of your e-mail messages.

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James Coates is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Let us know what you think of rthis column by clicking here.