Dave Poehlman

Just signed up for SBC Yahoo DSL...

And... I'm starting to question what I've gotten myself into. First, I made the mistake of installing the IE 6 that came on their CD... now I have Yahoo logos smeared all over everything!

Now, I'm looking into setting up my personal webspace that, according to my documentation, I get 15 MB of free. They're directing me to geocities! Which doesn't even support file sharing! You can't offer something to the general public and then call it a "feature" to your paying customers. It'd be like me owning a restaraunt and saying "free air to breathe inside"!

Does anyone have their service? Is this true? All I get is geocities?

Mark Frank

I'm in the same boat! Just got everything up and running Monday and had to spend quite awhile changing things back to the way I wanted them.

Here's what I did:

- Initiate your DSL connection
- Close the Yahoo browser that opens automatically
- Open up plain IE
- Choose the box that says "use this as my default browser
- Go into View, Toolbars, and turn off "Yahoo Companion"
- I also went into MSConfig and disabled Yahoo Messenger, but that's optional

I find that I still need to close the Yahoo browser that opens automatically when I first connect, but after that I can browse the way I'm accustomed to.

In regards to the web space, I haven't gotten that far yet. The $29.99 plan that I'm using has dynamic IP addresses so I figured I couldn't have my own web space, although I do recall something saying I got 15 MB of online storage. I'll have to figure that out later. Gotta play some online games first! Check out the Online FPS Recommendations thread I just opened if that's your cup of tea.

HTH!

Dave Poehlman

I can get the browser cleaned up fine. And get rid of that insidious password request I get from my outlook express every time I try to send an email... my biggest beef is the no web-space issue.

So far all I can find is the geocities garbage. I mean, if I am going to have ads flying up in my face all the time why am I paying for this service! The advertisers are paying! Yahoo briefcase sucks. It's completely useless.

I've never been a big fan of Yahoo.. but I didn't realize they were resorting to "AOL-esque" ISP tactics.

John_Berger

Don't forget to buy a DSL router/firewall, if you don't aleady have one. I am a firm believer in the notion that those with broadband but no HARDWARE firewall deserve to be hacked.

If you're tired of pop-up ads, then get Mozilla. (Even if you're not tired of pop-up ads, you should still get Mozilla.) It's a free download and now that you have DSL you can't use download time as an excuse.

As for GeoCities, you have to remember that Yahoo owns GeoCities. So, from a financial and technical perspective it makes sense to use their own established services rather than create a new web server configuration just for their DSL subscribers.

Dave Poehlman

I understand that. I don't think it's fair I, a paying member, am receiving the same level of service as the non-paying members.

The firewall issue is another concern of mine... they mentioned firewall (software) protection in their sales pitch, but I can't seem to find mention of it on my computer. Of course, I just set it up last night and haven't had real time to play with it yet. So, maybe it's there.

As for my web-space work around.. I've decided to move all of my files to a free site: www.topcities.com. I can put up a page that has only one ad banner at the top and no popups. I get a free subdomain. FTP access. 150 MB of storage, which is plenty for me. And, with a little creativity in file extensions, can manage to link to image files stored there. Yeah it only has a 600 MB bandwidth... hopefully I'll stay under that. If not, maybe I'll set up a second account.

Long live topcities!

Dave Poehlman

Scratch that... it seems that trick with topcities didn't work with older versions of IE. So, long live mywebpage.netscape.com !

They host files, no questions asked.