Spam Time

I just received this email from someone who I have never ever given my email address to. Now I don’t agree with spamming people but… what should you do to someone who has spammed you? Here is the email in question…

Hello,

Firstly, I apologize if this email is being sent to anyone with whom I don’t communicate anymore. GMail saves every person you’ve ever emailed as a contact and I want to get as much coverage if possible. So, if you have no idea who I am, delete this email.

So, in light of Google’s recent decision to try and destroy the Internet, I’m unhappy with them and may, at some point, dump GMail. So, please make the change in your address book. Instead of patd88@gmail.com, please use patrick@patricksays.net.

I will continue to use GMail as I watch their Verizon deal and see where it goes. But just in case, that Patrick Says address will get mail to me.

Thanks.

Patrick D.
—
Boxy says to read my blog at http://www.patricksays.net.

I do get al sorts of rubbish in my old AOL email address and it was annoying when that was my primary email address to have to sort out the crap from stuff I wanted to read. Fortunately I have my new iPrimus address which doesn’t get spam at all… yet.

Halleluiah

FINALLY I have become a part of the 21st Century. We now have broadband internet. It only took me five years or begging and nagging. Actually that begging and nagging really had no effect whatsoever on the ‘boss’ (Priscilla) as this was not the reason why she decided to give in to my pleading. She has always been adamant that broadband is just a gimmick that we didn’t really need and that to her, there would be no discernible improvement in our internet service. I could claim all that I wanted that we could browse the web 100 times quicker than our dial-up service and it would be less frustrating, but she would never listen. I could even prove that broadband would not cost a single cent more than dial-up but she was never convinced and thought that broadband was good enough. (Sigh!!!)

So what finally changed her mind if it wasn’t my begging? Well, at the beginning of  April we received a letter from our internet provider, AOL, that they would be leaving Australia on May 30th after so many years of dodgy service. We were given the option of joining iPrimus or having no internet service at all.

I should have known that AOL was leaving Australia. I have complained about their lack of service time and again and it seems that over the years things have become progressively worse. There have always been problems with AOL’s crappy browser, while the service has slowed to a crawl, especially when there is a Windows update being downloaded.

I always found AOL to be frustrating and the one good thing they had going for them, the ability to control spam, has since disappeared. Of course the amount of spam that I receive has exploded in the last two years, ever since I joined up with Facebook. Unfortunately all of this frustration could not convince Priscilla to join the broadband revolution and even after AOL notified us that we had to find another service she was still reluctant to get broadband. I had to plead to her again of all of broadband’s benefits and credentials until she finally said “I don’t care anymore, just do it!”

So hopefully now that we have broadband things will be better because if they are not I can just see Priscilla saying “I told you so!”

AOL Australia – The Final Chapter

At the end of March we received a letter from iPrimus informing us that their internet partner AOL was pulling out of the Australian market and that if we did not find sign up to another internet service provider by May 30^th we would be without internet connection. iPrimus told us that if we chose them we would be able to keep our current AOL email addresses, which is an idea that really appealed to me as I don’t fancy having to tell everyone I know a new email address. It also helps that our phone is with iPrimus too.

 On Monday we contacted iPrimus and arranged our new service with them. We have been assured that by the end of the week our new ADSL modem would be sent out and that within another three to five days our new service would be up and running. I figured that this was OK as we would still have our dodgy AOL service until the 30^th so we could still send and receive emails and surf the net while the news service was being set up.

 Then on Wednesday AOL disconnected our service. Yep, that’s right; ten days before they were meant to they decided to disconnect us. Worse still, the email addresses that iPrimus assured us we would still have no longer existed. I tried in vain to log into my email address from work but it kept telling me that it had been disconnected. In front of me right now I have the letter from iPrimus that says “You will be able to continue to send and receive emails with your @aol.com email address…” but in reality this is just another lie from a company that will do and say anything just to keep our business.

 All of this means that we are now without internet for another six to eight days and that I now have to inform everyone of my new iPrimus email address. I guess I will also have to set up a new email address for Priscilla and she will have to inform all of her family and friends of the changes too, although she does have another yahoo email address that she can use. I am glad that AOL has gone, as their service has become progressively worse since 2008. In the last six weeks the service from AOL has been barely usable. I hope that iPrimus offers us a better service although it could barely be worse!

AOL Is So Slow

I have said it a million times but I hate Primus AOL Australia. Being a dial up customer is bad enough, but it seems that every second time I turn the internet on the stupid AOL browser will not work. Then there is the ridiculously slow internet speeds. Surely it should not take more than five minutes to open a single page. Primus AOL is slower than when I first got the internet 15 years ago. Obviously they are deliberately slowing the service down to force all dial up customers onto broadband. Anyway I will go to broadband but it will not be with Primus AOL. I may switch to iPrimus, because my telephone is with Primus, but then again I may go with someone else for both internet and telephone. I have heard that Primus AOL will disappear and their customers will be taken over by iPrimus, but I don’t know if this is true. Then again, as I have stated time and time again, this is not my decision to make. I have made my case numerous times to the boss and she still has yet to give me the green light to do this.

AOL Sucks

The last post took me over an hour to get put up onto the blog and four attempts, thanks to AOL running so slowly and the browser mucking up again. Sigh!!!

Yeah, I know I should get broadband and stop complaining, but as I have said, that is not my decision to make.

AOL browser not working again.

 I know, I know! I go on and on about how crap AOL is and how the browser works only 70% of the time, and how AOL dial-up is so slow, and how I have promised to get broadband. I just thought I would complain about it once again. Whinge, whinge, whinge! Whine, whine, whine! It must be that English blood in me that makes me do it so often.

AOL Slower Than Ever

I know that I complain and complain and complain about AOL Australia, but I have distinctively recognised that their dial up service is getting slower and slower. It’s taking forever for a page to load up now when not too long ago it wasn’t so bad. Either iPrimus is getting ready to switch off AOL and are running down that service in order to get AOL customers to switch over to Primus, or they are slowing down the dial up in order to get people onto broadband. Anyway I will hopefully be getting broadband soon, although I’ve said that many times over the past two years but then again the decision is unfortunately not mine to make!!!

To Go Broadband Or Not!

We have made the decision to go broadband. It probably won’t be for a little while, but we will eventually do it. There are a few things that we have to do first, before we go broadband. Firstly we need to get a modem and it has to be one that is not only compatible with Windows Vista, but one that is supported by Primus AOL.

I’d really like to get a Netcomm modem. We used to have an old Netcomm dial up modem when we got our first computer and found it to be very good. Netcomm have a very good reputation, so I’d like to stick with them.

Now to see which modems are compatible with Primus AOL. The Netcomm NB1200 is compatible, and is a cheap modem, available in Office Works in Elsternwick for less than $30. Unfortunately because this is an old modem it is not Vista compatible. Doh!!! I am still wondering why we upgraded to Vista!

The Netcomm NB5 modem is another one that is compatible with Primus AOL. It costs $97 at Office Works, so it’s not that expensive. However there are two versions of the NB5, the NB5Plus4 and the NB5Plus4W. These can be either revision 1 or revision 2 versions, with only the revision 2 version being compatible with Vista. Revision 1 units will not work with Vista as they have an older chipset in them which is not compatible with Vista. Revision 2 units will work fine with the drivers listed above as they have a different version of the chipset in them. So hopefully if and when I go to Office Works to buy the Netcomm NB4 modem it will be a revision 2 version. (My luck they will only have revision 1!)

The next thing I have to do is settle on an internet plan. I will stick with Primus AOL, despite all the grief they have given me over the years. The Primus phone plan we are on is just too good to get rid of. I like the ADSL+2 Starter plan where I get 2GB of downloads for $35. (This is just $5 a month more than the current dial up plan I am on!) One thing that I like is that there is no excess data charge as the download speed is reduced if monthly data allowance is exceeded. There are other plans that charge you extra if you go over your download limit. We were once stung by this type of thing a long time ago (12 years) when we first got dial up.

Before we get broadband I will still have to do a little bit more investigation.

More Primus Problems

I am fed up with Primus AOL. A few days ago I came home form work to discover that there was a message on my voicemail. Unfortunately there was a problem with the line and I could not access my voicemail. Every time I called my voicemail it was engaged. How could my voicemail be engaged?

I could not get through at all. What if it was an emergency or if someone desperately needed to get in touch with me? It was so frustrating.

The day after when I rang up the Primus faults number I got through to the internet division. I spent fifteen minutes waiting in a queue for this! Anyway, the guy who was on the other end of the line was really helpful and the problem was eventually solved. I am still sick of Primus’ service that doesn’t seem to always be working!