Email Accounts

This is long and has a pretty good ending, but you'll have to read to get to it!  And I'm writing this is relatively good humor, as you'll see by the end.  Consider it "a novel to read in 20 minutes".  I'm done complaining.  LOL!

I originally set up 3 email accounts on Verizon mail years ago (2008).  It was quite easy.  So I set up a primary email for myself (friends, family, shopping, my Cavebear's Lair blog).  That is me "in general".

I set up one for the cat blog (Mark's Mews).  That one gets 95% of all my emails of course.  Mostly notifications on comments.  It is easier to read them in email than actually going to the blog.  And all of those are saved that way "just in case".

I set one up for my garden posts and forums (Yardenman).

I was happy as a pig in mud.  I loved being organized in my slightly different 3 personas.  No deceit intended, but it was just easier to have family, cat blog, and garden forums separate.

And then, in 2017, Verizon sold their email accounts to AOL.  "Rest assured", they said, "you keep your email addresses forever, and will get more experienced service at no cost.  This is for YOUR benefit".  I ask, are there more chilling marketing words than that?

AOL is used to people having one email.  But they worked hard to get my 3 accounts transferred.  And they did succeed.  I ended up with a dozen different passwords and I wasn't sure which went to which email account, but they assured me they could always find it or give me a new one.  No cost.  I was a legacy from Verizon, and free service was part of the contract.

Nothing is forever...

When I foolishly downloaded Mac OS 'Catalina'  last November, everything to Hell in a Handbasket, as they say.  Catalina was a 64-bit system and none of my 32-bit apps worked.  And it was not reversable.  Apple WANTS everyone to "progress" and that meant 64 bit.  I kicked like a mule and I bit like a crocodile.  Didn't do me any good.  Catalina wasn't leaving my computer. 

So I pulled out the previous Mac Mini (that didn't have 'Catalina') and started migrating the Catalina one to it.  I had some short cables, so I had to snuggle both Macs on one desk.  Along the way, I moved one that still had an overlooked cable attached

That cable caught my wine glass and spilled it onto the Catalina Mac.  It's OK to laugh.  I'm trying to write this as a comic-tragedy...  The Catalina Mac was immediately fried.  Dead.  No power.  Drowned.  Zombied.  6' under.  You get the point....

So I had the older one I stopped using in 2017.  But I also had an external backup from a few days before.  On Mac, it is called "Time Machine".  Theoretically, you can restore your computer  down to the last email setting from it. 

But what they don't tell you is that it has to be the same computer.  To a different computer, it is just a collection of apps and docs and folders.  Guess who was on "a different computer"?

I tried everything for a couple months.  Ceiling Cat KNOWS I tried (I'll get some credit for that somehow someday, I'm sure, but not NOW).

I bought a new Mac Mini, not realizing that it was a cloud computer and had little memory.  I was able to return it.  I bought a real one.  1TB and faster stuff.  So I confidently went to use "Migration Assistant".  Apple says it will copy everything from an old computer to a new one.  Guess what doesn't work as claimed?  It copied most of the old Mac, but not the photos or email or settings. 

I'm going to guess it is partially my fault.  I customize and organize my computer files freely and in ways the designers probably didn't expect. 

When we got our first office computers (Convergent Technology, aka C3) in the early 90s , the spreadsheet was called Multiplan.  It had a way to link files together.  I linked freely.  I crashed the system.  Not to the point where our Data guys were upset, but to where the Multiplan programmers and C3 managers called me asking what I had done.  Well, it was more like "What the F ing H*ll did you do

I told them that I had explored their spreadsheet and used the features.  They had to rewrite large parts of their spreadsheet code to allow what I did.  I am very likely infamous at C3 and possibly mentioned in some software articles from the time.  

So I can get around software given a half a chance, and I find things the programmers didn't think of.  I couldn't fully migrate the old mac to the new one.  The Photos would NOT go (too many I suspect).  The settings wouldn't transfer (I had to many alterations?) maybe.  My mail wouldn't go at all!

I got the photos transferred one folder at a time using an external HD.  The new computer didn't like it the way I did it, but it has to copy files directly if you are determined enough.  On tyhe other hand, you can't MAKE it copy "settings" apparently.

So then I called AOL about the email.  Remember that part about free service forever?  Forget that. Never heard of it.  And they hate us legacy Verizon email users.  They ARE stuck with keeping our email addresses working though.  I have no idea why that and not the free service, but that is money and who really knows what the contract actually says.

They demanded I have a separate phone to receive temporary codes.  I only have the landline (yeah, I'm THAT primitive).  Call waiting would work, but I had never set that up and wasn't even sure I had it.  AND they wanted me to pay $5 monthly for a support account for each email account.  I went for one for the Cavebear email account.  If I had to live with one, that's "me".

They got that working, but refused to touch the others unless they could send a text or voice code to a separate number.

Well, after finally getting the photos moved and setting up new setting all around, I set up a "chat" with a Verizon agent.  She told me I had call waiting and how to activate it.  Stupid me, it was right there on a phone button!

But armed with call-waiting, I confidently called AOL again, expecting to have to pay $5 per month for tech support for each account.  And expecting to have trouble understanding what the agent was saying.

And THIS is why I am so thrilled.  First, imagine an Asian Indian/Irish accent (it sounded beautiful whatever it was).    Second, imagine not being asked to sign up for a year's worth of monthly payment for 3 accounts.  Third, imagine someone who cheerfully led me through all the stages of all 3 accounts (correcting a few previous mistakes by the previous AOL agents) for over an hour and got all 3 accounts working AND even helped me get the email accounts under my Inbox.

I even asked her if she enjoyed her job when it takes so long for a customer like me and she said she really does enjoy helping people with difficult problems.    She seemed sincere.  OK, I get that.  Sometimes I spend hours at a gardening site answering questions that will never benefit me in any way.

And another thing.  They always tell you a name when they start and you never remember it.  So when I told her at the end that she was the most helpful tech person I ever dealt with and wanted to commend her to AOL, she requested I didn't.  I was stunned.

After we tested sending a few emails between my accounts to be sure it was all working, I thanked her and hung up.

And I immediately emailed AOL.  I told them I didn't have her name, but I gave them the case number, and that they had better make her "Employee Of The Year" because she did what 5 other of their agents didn't! 

I do have 11,000+ emails to sort out, but that is sure better than none.  I can do that.

And I did an internet search about where my Firefox bookmarks are.  I learned I can't "import" them because they don't get the idea of importing from Firefox to Firefox.  I'll bet I can import them to Safari and THEN to Firefox.  I LOVE "workarounds", LOL!

I have duplicate pictures that won't go away using a "duplicate-remover" app.  I'll remove them manually over the next few weeks. 

BTW, I learned the difference between email settings of POP and SMTP.  Email providers love POP because it is simpler.  SMTP files are recoverable.  POP files aren't.  Take a look at your email settings and see which you have...  If they are POP, call your email provider and demand a change.

But nearly everything is re-established on my new computer.  3 months of misery.  But you know what?  Next year, I will hardly even remember it.   Times heals all wounds.  And in the grand scheme of things, the past 3 months will not matter next year. 

Happiness to all.  My computer life is finally coming back into order...

And thanks to all who read this far.

Mark