Notes of Interest
notes of general interest and funny items will be placed into this section:
Subject: Re: AOL et Internet Explorer
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998
cchabal@aol.com wrote:
Question: Comment faire fonctionner Internet Explorer quand mon
fournisseur d'accès s'appelle AOL ??
AOL? Aie! :-}
J'ai oublie exactement ou dans la systeme, mais AOL peut vous
fournisser les instructions pour ca... je crois qu'on l'encontrera
au section nomme "User Help"
(Et je vous en prie de pardonner mon "Francais"!)
Subject: Re: AOL Instant Messenger
Date: 14 Jun 1998 10:18:21 GMT
From: lvirden@cas.org
Organization: Nedriv Software and Shoe Shiners, Uninc.
Newsgroups: comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc
AOL bites and now I have to deal with it in Netscape? If I am
not mistaken AOL uses a MSIE browser
You are not 'dealing with it' - netscape 4.05 comes with an ICQ/IRC/Chat
type tool that allows you do to real time chats. It happens to be
attached to one of the companies that AOL purchased, so it is called the
AOL instant messenger. This is similar in concept to the AOLpress program -
an excellent HTML editor which has little relationship to AOL other than
they own the company which writes it. Or the AOLserver - a scriptable
HTTP server again having little to do with AOL other than they own the
company. I suspect that at some time in the future you will see an
AOL ICQ, now that they own that company as well.
--
Setting up filters for email redirection into a special folder
Hi guys,
Thanks for all your suggestions for setting up filters... alas ...
AOL doesn't seem to have that feature
-Edward
Answer by Rodney Myers, developer of Shop@ssistant:
Just because you link to the Internet via AOL does not mean you have to
use their software. You can log on and then switch to other software.
Besides the lack of email filter....
Some AOL 'internal' browsers refuse to submit simple forms to eg
formmail.cgi which makes things difficult for their members who stray
outside the AOL cocoon.
Testing web pages with AOL browsers
Question:
Does anyone here know how I can install AOL's browser on my system, for use
in viewing web pages I have written. I don't want any other parts of AOL
but the browser. I hear that web pages will look a bit different in AOL and
I want to be able to check them for myself.
Anyone else ever done this?
Thanks for the help in advance.
--
Bobbi (Volfsmaid on IRC)
Answer:
On the PC side, AOL uses an MSIE ActiveX Object as their AOL 3.x browser, so
viewing your pages in MSIE3 should show you how the pages will look. AOL
users with older software (AOL's version 2.5) have a proprietary browser. As
far as I know, there is no other way to use it than to install AOL 2.5 for
Windows. I requested a copy from AOL some time ago and never got a response
back.
On the Mac side, my understanding is the current version still has a
proprietary browser. Again, you'll have to install AOL's software to use it,
it's not a component or standalone install.
Note that in both cases, you must have an AOL account to use the browser;
their software is not capable of looking at local files and to reach the
Internet, you'll have to go through their servers.
==================
Richard Millward
rmillward@earthlink.net
Answer:
I was unable to install AOL's browser without signing on to their
service. I have seen other posts saying it is required to sign on. I
currently use my sisters account to logon and test through AOL. But you
do really need to test on AOL, I found my jpegs to look extremely blurry
on AOL, yet fine on other browsers.
Good luck,
SDC
Answer:
AOL's browser does substantial damage to both JPEGs and GIFs unless
you turn off the "compress web graphics" preference. See
Or get a better browser ... AOL's has no redeeming social value
that I've heard about.
Does your site look good on all browsers? FIND OUT:
--->http://www.BrowserSnapshot.com/?journal
+++ Sponsored by Browser Snapshot
+++ Get 18 Different Snapshots of your site!
*Built in MSIE browser
**Downloaded browser or previously packaged browsers such as
IWENG, Booklink or the Mac Interconx
jpegs look horrible
Re: Why do my jpegs look horrible in AOL browser?
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 21:43:05 -0400
From: "Warez Guy PR"
Foren: comp.infosystems.www.authoring.images,comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc,
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.ms-windows,aol.internet,aol.newsgroups.bugs
Simple, AOL sucks!
Fred Fluharty wrote in message <360FCC02.BA22EC76@pop.uky.edu>...
My apologies if this is some sort of FAQ or I'm posting to the wrong
newsgroup, but I need to find an answer to this problem quickly.
>
>I work for a web development company and we go to great efforts to
>produce high quality images for our sites. When we place high quality
>jpegs on pages, users of IE and Netscape see them fine, but users of
>AOL's browser, even recent versions, see the jpegs in very poor quality.
>
>Is this a problem with the AOL browser? Or maybe a problem with the
>users' setup? Is there anything that we, as developers, can do to make
>our images appear better in AOL browsers?
answer by Sue:
Hi Fred -
I was just asking this same question myself. I've been working on a personal
web site, and noticed that my .jpgs looked awful (blurred, with distorted
colors) in AOL using their IE browser, great using the Netscape browser you can
download free through AOL.
I did two things. First, made sure the "compressed graphics" box was unchecked
under My AOL/Preferences/WWW.
Second, I took all my .jpgs, which were scanned/edited in Photoshop 3.0, and
resaved them in Paint Shop Pro. When saving in that program, there is a .jpg
option that lets you change the dpi - mine was set at 300, I changed it to 75.
Voila, the images look great in AOL now. I'm sure Photoshop has this option, I
just don't know where it's located!
Hope this help!
Sue
answer by Lanny
In article <19981001234708.03738.00002401@ng-fb1.aol.com>,
suesharpe@aol.com (SueSharpe) wrote:
>Second, I took all my .jpgs, which were scanned/edited in Photoshop 3.0, and
>resaved them in Paint Shop Pro. When saving in that program, there is a .jpg
>option that lets you change the dpi - mine was set at 300, I changed it to 75.
>Voila, the images look great in AOL now. I'm sure Photoshop has this option, I
>just don't know where it's located!
It's in the Image Resize dialog. But for the web, it doesn't
matter--pixels are pixels, and dpi is irrelevant. What made 100% of the
difference was disabling ART compression in AOL.
When an AOL member pulls up your URL with their built-in
browser the images on the site are sent to a graphics
compression manager on AOL's servers that automatically
compresses every image. They do this to save bandwidth costs
and to be able to send the images faster to their members.
However, there are some dire consequences for sites that did
not save their images in acceptable formats for AOL's
compression manager. For the graphic to be compressed the
object has to be in a BMP, GIF or JPEG format, must not be an
animated GIF, and must be between 1 KB and 8 MB. A common
problem that affects compressed images is color bands or black
blocks in JPEGs. This usually happens when the image is created
with software that adds additional information to the headers
of the image (e.g. Adobe Photoshop 4.0, 5.0 or PhotoDeluxe). To
avoid this problem do not save your images with the default
"thumbnail preview" option. Another common problem happens
with JPEGs that are wider than 640 pixels. After being
compressed the image will automatically be resized to 640
pixels. To circumvent this convert the JPEG image to a GIF,
which will not be resized after compression. AOL members can
turn this default feature off and view your site as you
intended, but asking your readers to turn something off to view
your site might just turn them off to your site altogether!
Use GIF Lube
to make sure your images look good to AOL members: