I've managed to convince my girlfriend that AOL is the devil and she is ready to switch. This is a good thing. I'm not sure which ISP she should use. This is a bad thing. I've been thinking of Earthlink or NetZero. NetZero is cheaper, but im not sure how reliable it is, but I know that Earthlink is pretty good as far as dial-up goes. Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of NetZero and Earthlink (or any dial-up ISP for that matter)? She can only use dial-up, there are no broadband services in her area right now and she HAS to be online ASAP for college. So, any suggestions or info?

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My $.02
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Pro: Cable ISPs
Con: Dial-up ISPs

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"Hass, alkoss, gyarapíts: s a haza fényre derûl!"

-Kölcsey Ferenc

like i said, she can't get broadband. there is no access where she lives.

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My $.02
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I dont think I'd be willing the trust NetZero. How often and for what purposes does she use a computer? AOL isnt that bad an ISP if you dont ever go online for reasons other than the surf the web and chat. (AKA you arent a tech savy person.)

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You underestimate the power of the Dark Side...

DSettahr's Homepage

[This message has been edited by DSettahr (edited December 02, 2003).]

the reason i want her to get away from AOL is that it's been sucking up her resources. thats the reason her computer is screwed up. she barely has enough RAM left to start the computer. as of right now she can't even back up her files to a CD. if AOL isn't the problem, someone PLEASE let me know what is! i'd rather not have to change her ISP and format her computer to get rid of it.

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My $.02
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Isn't Netzero part of the AOL Triad along with Juno?

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

You may already know this, but I thought I would mention it just in case. Make sure she still has plenty of swap space on her hard drive.

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Have Lightsaber Will Travel JK Editing tips, troubleshooting information, resources and more.
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netzero and juno are pretty much the same, but i didnt know they were with aol...



what is swap space and what does it do? i may know it by another name.


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My $.02
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It's just space in the ahrd drive to store data temporarily. If your hard drvive is full and you don't have a lot of RAM, it can slow the whole system down.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

After details of Juno's EULA were released to the media a couple of years ago, I wouldn't go with them or anyone affiliated with them.


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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.

Get earthlink if thats your only choice

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Happy "Diseased" dud: You said I'd be like this guy. Boycotting everything..
Happy "Diseased" dud: ted kazcnisky. That's who it was.
Happy "Diseased" dud: Wait, That's the unibomer.
Happy "Diseased" dud: Wrong guy.

Evad, why is that? I've never read it.

Her hard drive has plenty of space, so I doubt that is the problem. Also, she has 256 MB of RAM.

Maybe I'll just tell her to go with EarthLink...

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My $.02
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[This message has been edited by Crimson (edited December 02, 2003).]

In Juno's EULA they made it clear that signing up with them and agreeing to this EULA would entitle them to use your 'spare' processing power and disc space for thier use. You were not to interfere or ask questions. If you computer failed or got any kind of virus/sickness it was not thier fault or problem.

No thanks.


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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.

Earthlink actually isn't that bad of an ISP. Just don't buy into their Accelerator service. It's pointless, it may give some speed on a few sites, but your internet cache will provide more performance than the service will. Not to mention it compresses and makes graphics look like crap to keep the speed decent. (Still not instant even afterwards)

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...

I had Juno. Sucked. Tried Netzero. Sucked.
Never had Earthlink. Go for it.

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"Did you just say.....Birthday Party?...."

Forget earthlink, they have spyware just like every other national ISP. Go with a local ISP. Find someone in her city/town offering internet access. They generally offer it for the same price as the national guys, but you don't have to use the "install CD" that installs spyware and their own branded version of IE or whatever. They just give you instructions on connecting, and you use all windows native software. Forget the national guys.

some local ISPs are even considerably cheaper

only problem is if you do any out of town travelling where you would want to get online this is the ONLY advantage the larger ISPs seem to have

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LONG LIVE DREAMCAST!!!

duh, local ISP! she hardly ever travels, so that won't be a problem. anyone know where to find local ISP's for Orlando/Apopka? when i do a search i find only the big guys.

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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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Look in the phone book under "internet"

BING! Once again, Brian has said the exact perfect thing for this thread. Local ISP's are definately the way to go. They're generally cheaper, and also usually very reliable as they have a ton less people trying to dial in.

You might also check out SisnaNot sure if they'll have service in your area, but I've been happy with them.

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Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin
http://www.writings-emag.net The next big thing since individually wrapped cheese slices (coming soon).

have you guys heard of AOL permanently stealing RAM or is that BS? she'd like to stay with AOL if it isnt the problem (even though it's a problem in itself)

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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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Unless AOL's software has done something strange to her computer, she shouldn't have any problems from them when she's not online.


Since swap space has already been defined, let me add that she needs to have defraged her hard drive recently. If the space is split up too badly the swap space won't work as well.

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Have Lightsaber Will Travel JK Editing tips, troubleshooting information, resources and more.
www.swgalaxies.net For all your Star Wars Galaxies needs
The Massassi A SW Galaxies Player Association

i make sure she defrags and performs disk cleanups regularly. so swap space should be ok. from everything she's told me (her computer takes upwards of 2 hours to BOOT UP, runs programs slowly, tells her there is not enough memory when she tries to run most things, crashes when it doesnt tell her that...) it sounds like a lack of RAM. so should formatting the hard drive and reinstalling fix that?

it's odd to have 2 topics going on in one

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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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Sounds like she needs a whole new dang computer.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...

Um.. if it takes 2+ hours to boot up... it isn't AOL...

Are you sure the RAM or hard drive isn't physically damaged? (If you have one) try bootin to an external (or install another internal) hard drive, and see if you can switch the ram with some extra you have lying about. (Assuming you do)

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[12:42] Spork: I wish I knew, coned sucked. owned owns coned and pwned.
MadQuack on Military school: Pro's: I get to shoot a gun. Con's: Everything else.
"I'm going to beat you until the laws of physics are violated!!" ! Maeve's Warcry

she would love to get a whole new computer, she's been swearing that's what she needs from day one. i dont disagree, but i think dell will. i KNOW dell will.

btw, it's a laptop. i have one just like it, but i cant figure out how to get the hard drive out. if i can get it out tonight, i'll swap it with my HD and see what happens. i'll also swap the RAM while i'm at it.


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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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[This message has been edited by Crimson (edited December 02, 2003).]

Don't. Go. Into. A. Laptop. (Unless you know what you're doing)

They aren't the kinda place you want to play around in.

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[12:42] Spork: I wish I knew, coned sucked. owned owns coned and pwned.
MadQuack on Military school: Pro's: I get to shoot a gun. Con's: Everything else.
"I'm going to beat you until the laws of physics are violated!!" ! Maeve's Warcry

RAM is no problem, snaps in and out. the hard drive supposedly slides in and out, i just cant get the cover off of it completely. its surprisingly easy to get to the drives on an inspiron laptop. for example, you take out he fixed CD drive by unscrewing one screw, and pull it out by the tab. like pie.

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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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You do realize that pulling the ahrd drives from your respective computers will move everything, like your OS and such to the other computer. I'm not sure I see the point of doing that at all. Also, what happydud said.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

the point would be to see if my computer will start up with her HD in it, to see if her HD is damaged or the like. but like i said about the laptop, this one is actually pretty easy to work with. have you ever seen an inspiron 8200? check one out if you get the chance, i was surprised at how easy it is to get to everything.

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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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how would i prove that the hard drive or RAM is damaged? she called Dell last night twice and they finally settled on formatting the hard drive and reinstalling windows, but if it's damaged i couldnt reinstall it could i? then she'd be screwed. and like i said, she HAS to have her computer working this week with finals and all.

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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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Be careful, swapping out the hard drive would likely void the warranty.

I really hated NetZero.

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<kyle90> i got my SAT scores back
<kyle90> according to the sheet i got sent in the mail, I did "better than 99% of all college-bound seniors"
<kyle90> of course, thats comparing me to americans
<kyle90> so its not really a fair assessment

What are the specs for her computer? Has it always acted like this, or did it start recently?

Spyware can do a lot of damage performance-wise, but it sounds like that computer has suffered a hell of a lot more than spyware infection. . physical damage to a hard disk is probably unlikely, b/c i've heard that hard drives are airtight and could theoretically survive a trip underwater. (I don't know to which extent that claim may be true, if at all). Of course, if someone dropped the HD when it was being installed, then that may account for a lot.


What I would do is do a full format and reload of her computer. Destroy everything until the drive is absolutely blank. As it sounds, making a backup would be impossible, so you have to be willing to sacrifice any files that you have on the drive.


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Most people regard me as the dark and immoral side of Massassi. At least I'm getting what I want out of life.

I dont know what other people have been saying, but NetZero is not good. If you idle for too long (10 min maybe) they kick you off.

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^^
00

Escaping AOL? I suggest an exorcism, consult your local church. I'll just throw in my two cents - Go with local, the national corporations don't care, the smaller ISPs actually need you.

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June 16 - A night to remember
Ex-Council of 14
Miken
"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off everything and let the problem solve itself?"

she has had the computer for a little over a year and the problem started recently. its been a little slow for the last couple of weeks, but yesterday is when it started taking forever to boot up and do anything. i've had her scan her computer with 2 or 3 different things and gotten rid of the few spyware things that were on there (really only cookies, no programs or anything). so i really doubt it's spyware. if the hard drive is damaged, will it cause the computer to run incredibly slow? i switched RAM with her and that isnt the problem it seems. it worked just as slow with my RAM as with hers.

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Truth is in the eye of the beholder.
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AOL is evil. Bah, each upgade just adds more crap to your computer.

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Snail racing: (500 posts per line)
---@%

Funny the way you say that, considering that anyone can read the EULA.

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You underestimate the power of the Dark Side...

DSettahr's Homepage

But not everyone can understand what they read.

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June 16 - A night to remember
Ex-Council of 14
Miken
"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off everything and let the problem solve itself?"