Computer illiterate needs help!

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I’m having a problem with my computer and wonder if anyone can help me. I just use AOL but a few days ago, all of a sudden, my buddy list disappeared and I can’t IM anyone (or see my daughter’s away messages so I know what she’s up to!!). </p>

<p>We have another computer and when I log onto that one, there’s no problem and the buddy list comes up just fine. So I know the problem is my computer. When I try to access the buddy list by clicking on “community” on the task bar, I get some weird error message.</p>

<p>Anyone have any suggestions, short of my doing the Dell-wait-for-45 minutes-for=the-foreign-help-desk-routine??</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>interesting, is only AIM malfunctioning? something like this happened to me once, but i was too lazy to figure out what was wrong. instead, i uninstalled aim and then downloaded and installed it again. haha, no troubleshooting skills involved, but i guess it still beats being on hold for forty-five minutes. O_o</p>

3

<p>fredo, I don’t think that it is a problem with your computer, it is a problem with the version of aol on your computer.</p>

<p>Quickest fix is to download aol 9.0 again. (This is assuming you have 9.0–if not download it.)<br>
<a href=“AOL”>AOL;

<p>This should give you back the buddy list and IM capabilities. </p>

<p>On 8.0 I had problems and would re-download it and the problems would be gone.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

4

<p>Not sure if you solved your AOL problem or not, but did you try to click on “community” at the top of the page, then buddy list? My buddy list goes away occasionally and that is how I have brought it back up…</p>

<p>We also use GAIM now–download and use it free. It has great features like it can automatically back up all of your IM conversations, and then you can search through them–REALLY handy when I want to remember what my kids said–plus if I have a conversation with my kids when my husband is out of town, he can catch up on the conversations without me trying to paraphrase everything. Hope this helped…</p>

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<p>Kosha-
What does the “g” stand for in the AIM account?? If I want to save an IM conversation, I just highlight and copy it into an email, and send it to myself! Probably more low-tech, but it works!</p>

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<p>here is the link for GAIM… <a href=“http://gaim.sourceforge.net/[/url]”>http://gaim.sourceforge.net/&lt;/a&gt; my kids installed it for me, but it has been great! It also has features that allow you to see how long they have been online, but inactive; allows you to see when they are online and active but have an away message up; automatic saving of discussions (and search capabilities); I think that you can even save their away messages every time they change?–features that AOL does not offer…</p>