Wednesday Status Update: Alerts, Pictures, E-Mail

Hi folks -- here's a few updates on stuff related to Journals:

* Alerts: In response to some of your reports of Alerts nondeliveries, John from the Alerts team reports: There was a problem yesterday, and they worked to resolve it late last night. They should be fully recovered by now, but if you're still having Alerts problems, please let us know via comment or an e-mail to JournalsEditor@aol.com

* Problems With AOL Pictures in E-Mail and Journals? I've gotten some reports that some people are experiencing hanging, freezing, or even crashes when they're trying to insert pictures into their AOL E-mail or Journals, while using the AOL software.

Typically, they'll see the AOL Pictures loading bar (with the animated green dots), then boom.

I've asked the Pictures and Mail folks to take a look; if you're experiencing this problem, it would help if you could tell me:

• What version of the AOL software you're using:
  1. In the top menu bar, click "Help"
  2. Select "About America Online"
  3. You'll get a screen with your version information, like this:
     

     America Online 9.0 Security Edition
     
     SE
     
     for Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows 2000 and Windows XP
     
     
     
     Revision 4184.5361

  4. Highlight the info with your mouse, then right-click and choose "Copy"
  5. Paste it into an e-mail and send that to me.
• If you've tried clearing your footprint -- I say this a lot; there's a reason. For example, I was having a problem yesterday with commenting in a Journal (kept getting asked to sign in, even though I was signed it), until I cleared my footprint.
• If you still have problems with Pictures when you use a standalone Web browser

As a workaround for inserting pictures in e-mail, don't forget that you can also send the pictures as an attachment. Not as pretty, but it gets the job done.

* The Power of Screen Names: Reminder -- if you know someone's Journal address, you know their screen name, because their screen name is part of their blog's URL -- http://journals.aol.com/journalseditor/magicsmoke/ -- JournalsEditor is my screen name, which means you also know my e-mail address: JournalsEditor@aol.com.

Whether someone answers or accepts your e-mail is a different story -- I answer mine, though I admit I rarely sign on to IM as JournalsEditor (I'd never get anything done, if I did, unfortunately. So if you want to reach me, send me e-mail.)

Because AOL & AIM screen names are usually used in our community products, that means you can see my other public stuff pretty easily; just look at the address format and see where the screen name goes. For example:

* My AIM Pages profile: www.aimpages.com/journalseditor

* My AOL Pictures public gallery: pictures.aol.com/galleries/journalseditor

* My UnCut Videos: uncutvideo.aol.com/users/journalseditor

* My Ficlets: ficlets.com/authors/journalseditor

All this stuff is publically available, though I have the option of making elements of each of those things private (all AOL Pictures public galleries are public, but you can still create private, shareable albums).

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals status, community products, alerts, aol pictures, uncut video, screen names, aim pages