The Revenge of AOL/Lessons I learned about my computer

By Joanna Campbell Slan

As with most crises, this one began simply enough. My AOL inbox showed 20,000+ messages. The number had built up over time. In a surge of energy, I decided to clean out the inbox. Four hours later, I’d winnowed the mess down to 3,000+ emails. Some of you might have even gotten an email from me, because if I had any questions about whether an email had been responded to, I sent a new email to double-check.

That night, I went to bed feeling incredibly organized. Yes, I was taming my email habit at last. My friend Marla had shown me how to use the rules function. Aaron, my computer guru, told me how to block offending domains. The number in my inbox had shrunken considerably. The leftovers could be dealt with the next morning. All was well in my soul.

Alas.

The next day, I opened my computer to find…40,000+ emails. I called Aaron. He did a remote session (oh, the computer gods have ways of controlling our machines from afar!), and reset the AOL account. He deduced that AOL wanted to save all my emails for 30 days. When I tried to destroy them, AOL thoughtfully replaced all of them. We thought we had the problem fixed, although Aaron’s last pronouncement proved prescient, “I hate AOL.”

“You told me that.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll say it again. I hate AOL. You get what you pay for.”

“Right, but I still use that account. Mainly for sites that force me to sign up or for when I make purchases.”

“Yeah, but I’m just sayin’…I hate AOL.”

“Got it.”

Later that day, a warning popped up in the lower right hand corner of my screen. It told me that I was running out of disk space. I hit the Crap Cleaner button. I did the Malware cleaning. Usually that’s all I need to do. Of course, cleaning the disk space is a hassle because as you do, you clean out all the “cookies,” which are really bread crumbs that lead you back to places you’ve been. When the cookies are gone, you have to manually re-enter passwords. A pain in the backside. However, I was being a good little scout. I did it. And I kept writing on my newest Kiki book and a short story.

The next day…Armageddon. AOL decided I could NOT do without the emails I’d deleted and repopulated them AGAIN. I now had 220,000+ emails in my inbox. I also had 50,000+ emails in my trash folder. I couldn’t send or receive any emails. A big yellow caution sign covered my enterprise server, the joannaslan.com site.

So I decided to take out the trash (in the computer). I needed to hurry because I was catching a plane up to DC. From there I was flying to Seattle, Washington, for a family wedding. I hit the right buttons. Hit them again. Nothing happened.

In a panic I called Aaron.

As it happened, between the emails in my inbox and the emails in my trash, I’d used up ALL the available space on my computer. In fact, between the manuscripts on my laptop, the photos, the covers, and everything else, I’d used up 60% of my disk space. My emails ate the rest, the remaining 30%.

Fortunately, there was a fix. I could physically drop off my computer with Aaron, and he could install a bigger hard drive. A much, much bigger hard drive. So I did.

Now my computer is slicker than owl snot. (As if I’d know how slick owl snot is!) And faster than a speeding bullet. (Ditto.) Aaron kindly worked overtime to get the machine back to me. Between his efforts and the wedding and traveling, I took a semi-forced vacation from my laptop. Yesterday I actually floated around in my son’s pool for an hour. It was heaven, watching the clouds float overhead in a blue, blue sky. Here in Winter Park, Florida, the temperature soared into the 90s, and the water was perfect! I actually fell asleep while drifting in the plastic doughnut.

And you know what? Despite the hassle, and the cost, and the exasperation…I’m kinda/sorta glad this happened. I now have more storage space. I feel refreshed. I really needed to take a break from technology. My mind feels much clearer, and I’m ready to get back to work.

What did I learn from all this?

• I’m recommitted to cleaning my email inbox more frequently–and immediately dumping the “trash.”
• I’m going to be more pro-active about using external back-up drives. I’ll keep one up in DC at our business and one in Florida.
• I’ll be putting more of my finished manuscripts in the cloud from now on as a way to keep things organized and to better manage storage.
• I’ll always get the largest hard drive I can afford. When we bought this new laptop, it never occurred to us to see if we could get a bigger hard drive. This one is four times the size I had.
• I’m so glad I keep a little notebook with all my passwords written down. Another computer guru, not Aaron, told me that he spends a lot of his time working with people who put all their passwords on their computer only to have a computer problem and lose all access.
• I need to take a break from my computer once in a while. It’s positively addicting. I need to clear my thinking and detach.
• I really appreciate Aaron. He’s a girl’s best friend when it comes to my computer. Everyone needs a computer whiz as a pal.

Oh… and Aaron still hates AOL.