July 29, 2011
Dear Everyone:
I have spent the past few weeks fighting tooth and
nail with my email system.
Ever since Comcast “upgraded” their email front-end, I have had problems
getting into it. The web
browser just keeps toggling back-and-forth between the login screen and
the email system. Something
to do with proxy settings I THINK.
I could get in from my computer at work, which had an older
version of the browser.
Can’t use that anymore.
I could get in on “Jeannie’s” computer, which is
even OLDER. I tried
contacting Comcast and their advice was to DOWNGRADE my browser to an
older version (so much easier on their part than finding a real solution
to the problem… Also, it
didn’t work.) And I tried
the local branch of our public library; again, I could access the email,
but it’s not exactly convenient.
Then I remembered my old laptop, an
XP box that
crashed three days after Christmas, 2009.
At the time, I simply replaced it with my current laptop, which
uses Windows 7. The old
laptop still works, only in “Safe Mode”, and does allow me to access the
email system. But that means
relying on something that is not, by definition, reliable.
Meanwhile, changing email addresses is a lot like
changing any other kind of address:
Notifying many, many entities of the change.
Forgetting who knows how many.
It’s a hassle.
What to do?
My first impulse was to look for another email service provider.
But then I realized that I’m PAYING for this service with each
month’s bill. I tried going
to the browser support, but their advice was the same:
Downgrade to an earlier version of the software and hope for the
best. Done that, been there.
I finally decided to try another (“free”) email
service. A former co-worker,
who has a Master’s Degree in
computer technology, had sent me an email
and I noticed that she did not rely on Comcast, even though it is the
most common
Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the area.
Instead, she used something called “Hotmail”.
I decided to look into it.
Turns out it’s a
Microsoft product.
So I signed up. But
the system would not let me use my usual ID, “apwo” (first initial,
middle initial, first two letters last name).
That was taken. So
was “apwood” and most versions (“apwood2”, etc.)
I decided to use my middle name, which is so unique that the
state of California can’t even get it right.
Voila!
I now have a unique email address that takes longer to type in.
Then I discovered that this new email system would let me monitor
my “old” email system. No
need to “change” addresses with banks, friends,
ARMA, ICRM,
OSF, DBM or
any of those other alphabeticals.
In fact, I can continue to use the “old” address when signing up
for things online and I won’t have to be bothered by all those emails
that inevitably follow.
It’s what we call a “win-win”.
I still had to spend several hours going through my
“contacts” in the old system, copying names and email addresses to a
text file on a flash drive, then creating the same contacts in the new
system. (Note:
Public Libraries frown VERY seriously on plugging your “thumb
drive” into one of their computers.)
But that’s pretty much all squared away now.
So if you only have my “old” email address, fear
not; it’s still “good”, and I will continue to monitor it regularly.
The new one is:
xxxx@hotmail.com. If you get
this Letter via email, you can probably add it to your own contacts list
fairly easily. And so it
goes…
Love, as always,
Pete
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