About AOL Email. From daytraders.com
First, AOL is the most overloaded network on the Internet with nearly 10,000,000
members. With that size, is it impossible for them to lose your mail when
something isn't working correctly on their end? Of course not, your message
from us is but a blip on the screen to AOL. It matters not if the message is
from your Grandmother, from Day Traders On-line or from the President of the
United States. It's just one message in a mass of mail.
Second, I've been in the computer and telecommunications field for over 15
years, but yet when I explain to members who are having e-mail problems that the
mail has left our system hours and hours ago, no body believes me! What? I'm
hiding your mail here and not telling you? :-o If it's not here, it's gotta be
there.
Finally, I have personally tested mail delivery between AOL and our system a
number of times. Sometimes it works fine, other times mail doesn't show up for
hours, yet AOL always denies a problem exists. When I send mail from point A to
point B and it takes 3-12 hours to show up - that's a problem.
So I ask you, when 30 users contact our office today complaining about lost
mail and they are ALL using AOL accounts, and no one else is having any problem
getting the reports - what does that say to you? Where is the problem likely to
be?
I understand it's a tough decision to change from AOL once you are used to
using it for mail. But how important is information about the stock market when
money is on the line? Still I understand human nature (i.e. it's a big pain to
from AOL). I can understand both points of view here and that leads us to only
one solution. If members will not heed our advice when it comes to mail and
their selection of providers, then we must try to over come AOL's short comings
ourselves. [And by the way, any provider can have mail problems. That is not
the point here. The point is some providers (e.g. AOL) have more consistent
problems than others.]
Note that reports are always sent out by 4:00 am to 5:00 am PST [at the
absolutely latest]. That's a full hour and 30 minutes before the markets open.
So the only solution we can think of is to setup a site on our web page that
will allow you to request the morning report should it not arrive on time. We
will try this and see how it goes. We may even be able to setup something
showing what areas have requested resends so visitors can get a feel for what
areas are having problems (just a thought).
This will not cure all problems, but at least you will have a backup. It's
likely a re-send will show up most of the time (assuming you are not dealing
with a major network outage some place). So starting next week you can request
a resend directly from the web page - we'll see how that works for a while.
We will provide the URL next week and in future reports so members will have
it handy. If you miss a report then you can come to the site and request a
duplicate copy. Hopefully this will solve the problem. We'll advise members
further when this system has been placed on-line. We expect it to be ready on
Tuesday of next week if not soon.
Also, please note this message is not directed at anyone specific, just the
continued frustration we run into when we spend thousands of dollars to make our
system work correctly, only to have AOL or other problems outside our control
mess up speedy delivery of member's mail.
Okay, that's it for now. Thanks a lot and we hope this change will help the
few members having problems.
Sincerely,
Ray Johns
Day Traders On-line
DAY TRADERS ON-LINE
P.O. Box 150
Pacific Grove, CA 93950
(408) 649-4545
(Fax) 649-1099
daytraders.com
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