AOL NetMail

[John M. Morris]

On Tue, 7 Jul 1998, Michael Dargan wrote:

> I've been asked by my staff to add the AOL NetMail plugin to our browsers 
> so that patrons will be able to check their AOL email.  Is anyone using 

Personally I'd say that if AOL can't find it in themselves to support open
Internet standards for e-mail (like POP-3 or IMAP) they can worry about
building a web based interface for it.  Installing special software just
for AOLers is taking a very big step down a very dark path.

That argument applies to the whole subject of what to install besides the
browser on a public station. Where does it stop?  The full AOL client
software itself? Every obscure plugin?  Hardcore windows netfreaks spend
hours every week keeping up with all of it, and once you start adding them
on there is always somebody wanting 'just one more' which of course is in
beta and won't work next week unless the new version is downloaded and
installed. 

Our approach is to offer any clients or plugins that are needed to access
services we provide and a select few others to support things that have
become popular enough they have to be considered defacto standards even if
they are single vendor solutions.  At last check we had:

Netscape 4.04
AnzioTerm for Telnet access to shell accounts on our server and a couple
of databases we subscribe to
Acrobat Reader because it has become a defacto standard.
RealAudio (maybe I'll remember to upgrade them to RealPlayer <g>)
Apple's Quicktime Player for Windows

Probably should add shockwave, but that's about it.

And of course some things are specifically omitted like ICQ and an IRC
client because they are by definition too much of a time sink. Keep
grumbling about blocking wbs and the other webchat servers but haven't
yet.

John M.      http://www.dtx.net/~jmorris         This post is 100% M$ Free!
Geek code 3.0:GCS C+++ UL++++$ P+++ L+++ W+ N++ w-- Y+ 5+++ R tv- b++ e* r%
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The views expressed certainly don't reflect those of CCC Internet Services.