Tech Support Pits:

From Jerry===

Dear Webby,
I've been a faithful AOL subscriber since going on line.
I have had nothing but grief, freeze-ups, loss of access and,
you name it.  I am reluctant to change to another provider,
because I am worried that I'll lose my favorite places and
E-mail addreses.
Am I worrying for nothing?
[Deacon] Jerry

Dear Deacon Jerry
Congratulations to your decision to graduate!

You have nothing to worry about.
To export your favorites,
open MSIE, hit
ALT F    or Click on FILE
I              or select Import/Export
N             hit Next
E             select Export Favorites
Enter, Enter
type in a file name that you can remember, like for example:
c:\favorites092204.html
Enter
And it's all done.
Just remember  ALT FINE,  ENTER,ENTER

An interesting side note here:
The default file that it suggests is "bookmark.html".
Looks like when they originally copied Netscape to make MSIE,
they plum forgot to rename that to "favorites.htm",
and they have not spotted that oversight yet.

You can look at c:\favorites.htm and see what was saved.
A nice and neat page with all your favorites in clickable links.
You can easily edit that page with a text or HTML editor and
weed it out.

You can import that, if necessary, into a new installation of
MSIE, or even onto a different machine.

As for email addresses, that's a bit trickier, because AOL
holds your address book hostage in order to scare you into
staying. However, for every dumb move they make, there are
a hundred kids that figured out a way around it.

Good instructions to for example export the addresses to
Outlook Express are here:
http://blog.kevindonahue.com/archives/2004/03/convert_aol_add.php

There is even a program available that does it all in five clicks.
http://www.connectedsw.com/Overview/57266
That one is not quite free, but depending on how much your
time is worth, it might be a bargain for you.

Have FUN!
DearWebby