AOL Tips and Tricks, AOL Features, Broadband AOL, and More.


I've used AOL since the early 90's, and I thought I would share with you some of the tips and tricks that I have found to be great advantages of using AOL (and why I have kept their service for so long). It has many advanced features that I like, but these are common features that many AOL users may not even realize they have. AOL has really come a long wayyyyyys since the early days, and is far more advanced and has more features then most people even realize. I would recommend anyone to at least try their free trial if you haven't tried the latest version. (Anyone can download the free trial at www.aol.com).

AOL offers many other advanced features that many people don't even know about:
1) Streaming news and streaming sports, updated every hour (this service is available through CNN.com for non-aol users for a monthly fee, but aol customers get this free).
2) Radio online, over 30 stations including awesome 80's, awesome 90's, r&b, dance, and country. This has completely replaced my stereo as I purchased some good pc speakers and sub woofer, I run the radio@aol feature daily, these stations online are better then any regular radio station I have heard. (I use aol high speed cable, so that helps also when playing the music or viewing streaming news/sports. Through a phone modem this may be alot slower but still is nice to have).
3) Music videos streamed to your pc of the top artists, many of these videos can be viewed before they are actually released. If you are a music video fan, this is nice.
4) They offer local news, local sports, local weather, etc. All this can be displayed instantly when you sign on.
5) Guaranteed access to email or instant messaging no matter where you are at or what pc you use. If you use a laptop then they have local numbers to dial into their service in almost any city, this is nice for traveling. If you don't have your pc, you can access your mail through any browser at www.aol.com and you can also download the instant messenger called AIM, which is available to anyone (this is also at www.aol.com)
6) You can play almost any card game against other opponents online. There are also many other games available, this is really great if you are a card player or online game player.
7) The best email service out there. Virus's can never be activated directly through email the way they can with other services, which is another big plus. Their spam filter is also the best I have found yet.
8) Free virus protection for anyone using AOL Broadband.
9) You can run AOL Broadband on top of any other internet service. They call it the BYOA plan (bring your own access). No matter what broadband internet service you use, you can run AOL right over the top of it just as if you were dialing in, but of course you will have the high speed instead!

The hidden advantage in AOL email

I have often heard people complain that AOL email does not keep all the text in the email when you "reply" to someone's email. Actually there is even a better feature in the AOL email, and one of the best features of any email service. With AOL, simply use your mouse to highlight any text you want to remain in the email before clicking reply, then click the "Reply" button. It will then automatically list the highlighted text, with a header on it, and you can then type your reply in the email beneath the text listed above. This is a great feature and should always be used when replying to someone! If you want all the entire text email to remain, simply use your mouse to highlight all the text in the email, then click reply. This is a great feature as you can emphasize and reply to parts of the email that was sent to you! Try it out yourself.

How to block people from emailing you

Hold down the CTRL button, then press k to bring up the keyword box. Type in Mail Controls and press enter. This will show you all the mailing controls you can set for who can email you, etc. There are alot of good features here so you should become familiar with this area.

How to clear cookies or cache

This part can get pretty technical, but AOL uses its own separate version of IE. It is good to keep this area cleaned up every once in a while, and it will also help protect your privacy. I strongly recommend you download a utility program called Complete Cleanup at this location. It even has a special AOL cleanup section for removing all sorts of leftover files on AOL that are leftover when browsing the internet.

How to unsend your email, or know when your email is read

Just click on your AOL "sent" tab to view the email you sent. You can also go to "email", then click "read", then click "sent" (on AOL 6.0 or later). This will show you your list of sent mail also. To unsend an email, simply highlight the email on the list and click the "unsend" button at the bottom and your email is unsent. You must do this before the email is read by the other person of course. If you wish to know if the email has been read yet, simply click the "status" button!

How to automatically have your pc bring in your email so you can read it offline

This is another great feature that AOL has provided, yet not many people know about. Lets say you get home everyday at 5pm, and you would like to read your email. You can have AOL sign on everyday for you at anytime (in this case lets say 4:50pm), and then you can set it to receive all email into your "inbox" and then sign off. When you get home, you don't even need to sign on or dial in! Just open your AOL software and instead of signin on, click on the filing cabinet and then double-click the "incoming" tab. There is all your email which you can read much faster since you aren't online! You can then hit the delete key when you are done reading if you don't want to keep the emails. Since you are reading them on your own pc now and not online, the emails will always remain there for you to read (unless of course you decide to press the delete button). This is a great feature that also allows you to send email (that you wrote offline) from your outgoing mailbox at specific times also! To setup these features, go to the "automatic" link (after clicking mail) and you will see your options to set. Don't forget to set your screen names and passwords, otherwise it won't be able to sign on for you! :-) This feature is more important for dialup users of course.

As an additional note on this subject, the more you use this feature the more usefull you will find it. Not only will you save alot of time, but you can also send and receive attachments automatically, so you do not have to wait for downloads while you are home!

How to setup an automatic signature, so when sending emails you can always sign it automatically and save typing

When writing emails, simply click the little "pencil" on the toolbar (you will see this when your email window is open), then click "setup signatures". After typing your email, click this again and select the signature you just setup, and it types the email signature or ending for you! A nice time saving feature. (You need AOL 6 or later for this).

Can I use AOL shopping if I'm not an AOL member?

Sure, anyone can go to the http://www.aol.com site to use their shopping sites, read top news, and more. You don't even have to be an AOL member. This is always changing as they make more content available to others.

How to get the latest version of AOL

AOL can be downloaded for free. Hold down the ctrl button, then press k. This will open the keyword box. Type in AOL 9.0 and hit enter (or whatever version of AOL is the latest version) and it will tell you how to download and install the latest version. You should always be using the latest version, as later versions fix bugs, are faster, and have many newer features. If you do not want to wait for the download, simply download it while you are watching tv, or just pickup an AOL CD-ROM at CompUSA or other online retailers that often have the CD sitting on the counter (its free of course) as you checkout. If all else fails, simply call the AOL toll free help line and ask them where you can pick up the CD, or ask them to mail one to you. Its definitely worth it if you do not want to wait for the download to finish.

How to get reminders sent to you via email

On AOL, simply go to keyword "reminder". You can setup various reminders that will arrive in your email box so you do not forget about any events. This is a great feature.

How to access AOL on the road or at a different location.

You can dial into AOL in almost any city, and also in alot of international countries, as AOL has spread almost everywhere. If you are using a laptop computer, simply choose a local phone number in the city you are in (the AOL help section will walk you through this, its a simple process and you can dial a local number in all the major cities and connect to AOL). If you just want to read your email, you can access this through any web brower, just go to www.aol.com and click the mail tab, then enter your username and password to read your email.

Get news and sports articles mailed directly to you

I don't know why AOL doesn't tell you this, but you can get news articles, sports articles, etc. sent directly to you via email! This saves you the trouble of looking up these daily articles. Hold down the CRTL key, press k to bring up the keyword window. Now simply enter "News Profiles" as your keyword (dont enter the quotes) and press enter. You can list the search words you want to have sent to you, for example, to get all the sports news that are about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, simply enter buccaneers as one of your search words. You will get scores, training camp news, etc sent directly to you. You can enter sharks to get all news about sharks, fishing to get all news articles that have the word fishing in them, etc.... there is alot of options on what you like to read, and you can go back and tweak your settings by adding or removing words to make your emails more complete.

Using instant messenger

Most of you already know how to do this, you can view your buddy list to see if your friends are online, type messages back and forth real-time, etc. Press and hold the CTRL button, then press k for the keyword box. Enter Buddy List as your keyword and you will find all the information on setting this up. You can even download the AOL instant messanger to use outside of the AOL software, and you can use it even if you are not an AOL member. Just go to www.aol.com to download (called AIM).

Can you use a high speed connection with AOL via cable or DSL?

Of course. Simply call the AOL help line for this information or visit AOL techlive (see next message below for this). Just ask them and they will tell you if you can get the high speed in your area yet. Once you go to high speed connection, you will never go back! I currently pay AT&T for highspeed cable, but you can use AOL for 14.95 a month/unlimited if you are paying someone else for cable access. This is a good deal, I love the AOL service and even though they don't have highspeed access in my area yet, I can still pay someone else and use AOL through the cable. No dialing in, downloads take place in seconds instead of minutes, and webpages load instantly. Definitely worth the extra money.

Can I read AOL email and news when I'm not connected to AOL?

Of course, open a browser no matter where you are, in a hotel or on the road, and go to http://my.aol.com (or www.aol.com) and click the Mail tab. Enter your user name and password and you can read your email without ever having the AOL software. This is a GREAT feature! This site is also a great news site which I read everyday! It also has tons of shopping sites (see below) and an excellent web search utility at this site.

How to adjust your spam filters.

Simply go to keyword "mailcontrols". You can enter your own words or phrases to be filtered into your spam box. You can also use AOL's internal spam filter in addition to your own entries. This means you can set this up to have your spam auto deleted, but I actually prefer to have it roll to my spam folder. That way I don't see it unless I go to the spam folder to view it, but in case something is placed there accidently (no spam filter is perfect) then I can still go retrieve it. AOL has one of the best spam filters, and you can utilize this many ways.

How to turn off advertisement windows when you first connect to AOL....

If you are receiving advertisement windows when you connect to AOL, simply go to keyword "Marketing Prefs" (dont enter the quotes) and you can then see many options to turn off those ads. Then everytime you sign on, the advertisement windows will not appear.

How to play card games against others online.

Simply go to keyword "games" (as mentioned earlier, hold the CTRL button down and press K to view the keyword box and the type in games and press enter). You can play card games against others live. You can play hearts, 500, etc... many games to choose from, pick your favorite or learn from the best, some of the players there are very good!