AOL Primer

This page is a compilation of Frequently Asked Questions from AOL users. Because so many new internet users come from AOL, and because the AOL properties are unique (as in proprietary) to AOL, users often have frustrating experiences on the "wide web"! Frustrations can be avoided or kept to a minimum by following some simple advice which offered on this humble page... =) Have fun and feel free to contact us if you have more questions.

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Getting Started | Adding Images/music | Your CW account | Plain Text in Email

Getting Started

Since you are an AOL user, let's make sure you have the right tools to make a website... =)

The browser AOL gave you is fine for use on AOL properties, but because it is an altered version of MS Internet Explorer, it doesn't always allow you to experience or use the internet the way others do. However, Mac users now get Netscape's Gecko built into their AOL browser instead of Internet Explorer.

For example, the AOL browser can read an image with the file extension .art, but other standard browsers cannot. So, you go about your business of making your site and admiring your work only to have visitors ask you what's the matter with your images... they're just broken image icons (or little red "x"s)! Or you are using someone else's computer and suddenly see that your images "don't work". What happened is that when you downloaded someone's graphic, the image compression settings on your AOL browser converted the .gif to .art (or corrupted the file)!

So, here is what you should do: Go to either Netscape to download Netscape 7 or to the Microsoft home page and download Internet Explorer with the full internet tools package (which includes Outlook Express and possibly Front Page Express). It would be best to download both.

Once you have a standard browser installed on your computer you are ready to begin your adventure.

Connect to AOL as usual with your AOL-issue browser open, but minimize it. Then open your standard non-AOL browser, which you will use to view all your web creation work.

In your experience with AOL, you may already have had to download some other common internet tools like an FTP program, a Zip compression program or an HTML editor. If not, then please be sure to read the Adding Images and Music section.

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Getting Started | Adding Images/music | Your CW account | Plain Text in Email

Adding Images and Music

First find (or make) the image/music files you want to use. If you find these files somewhere on the web, you need to make sure it is OK for you to copy them. The page will usually say whether or not it is OK to copy the images or music... if it *doesn't* say, you need to ask permission by finding an email link to the page owner.

With permission, copy the images/music files by placing your cursor over the image [music link], RIGHT-click and choose "Save Image As" ["Save Picture As"], choose a place on your hard drive to save internet downloads. It is a good idea to create a special folder for this purpose.

When you have the files you need on your hard drive you are almost ready to make a page on which to put them. Some programs which you will find very helpful for making web pages are:

Paint Shop Pro and FrontPage 2000 are optional, but handy to have. The other programs I highly recommend you download in order to make your web page creating experience happier... =)

A note about FrontPage: some features offered by this program are NOT supported at Crosswinds... the pages can *only* be .html or .htm and you can't do some fancy things like the "guestbook".

Now you'll be ready to learn HTML or to work with a web-page making program. A good place to start learning HTML is HTML Goodies where you will find tutorials for just about everything!

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Getting Started | Adding Images/music | Your CW account | Plain Text in Email

Your Crosswinds Account

You don't need to worry about your account at Crosswinds... even if it takes you a while to get an actual page made and uploaded, your site will still be there (no time limit to start your page). You can relax, take your time to learn and not worry about your account being deleted for lack of "moving in".

Your URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the basic Crosswinds address with /~username tacked onto the end if you have a Basic account:

http://www.crosswinds.net/~username

If you have a Premium account, your URL is a subdomain of Crosswinds:

http://username.crosswinds.net

Substitute your actual username for "username" above.

If you also purchased a domain name for Crosswinds to host, then your URL is your domain name:

http://www.domain.com

Replace domain.com above with your own domain name.

Your very first page (entrance page) must be named: index.html ... exactly like that, in all lower-case letters. After that, you can name your pages whatever you want as long as you use only alpha-numeric characters [a-z; A-Z; 0-9], dash [-] or underscore [_], and no spaces.

Mac users: remember to save files with file extensions
[.html .htm .gif .jpg etc.].

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Getting Started | Adding Images/music | Your CW account | Plain Text in Email

Displaying Plain Text in Email

AOL's mail reader renders HTML code, making it "invisible" (the code may still be there in the message "source" but most people don't know how to find this). This means that if you want to display HTML code for learning purposes, you have to be able to read and send mail as "plain text"; AOL has ways of sending mail as plain text, but there is currently no way to read it that way.

Your Crosswinds email can be used as either a webmail account or as a real POP3 account. Either way will let you view and send HTML-based email; in addition, POP clients will also let you read and send in plain text.

POP3 access means you can download your mail to your computer (sort of like AOL's "Filing Cabinet"). You must have a separate email "client" (program) to download your mail from the Crosswinds email server... your AOL reader won't work for this purpose.

Some Email client options:
If you downloaded Netscape 7, it comes with Netscape Mail for receiving and sending email. Most Windows installs include Outlook Express. Or you could use any POP3-compliant program such as Eudora (has a free and a paid version), Polarbar or Pegasus Mail (both freeware).

Once you have installed your POP email client of choice and configured it for your Crosswinds account, you should minimize the AOL software so you can see your desktop again, then launch your email program. All incoming and outgoing Crosswinds mail will be done inside that program and not inside AOL at all.

We found an excellent guide to formatting email in plain text, for many different email clients -- including AOL:
Configuring Mail Clients to Send Plain ASCII Text

If you have any trouble or other questions about email, just ask.

Getting Started | Adding Images/music | Your CW account | Plain Text in Email