On Thursday 08 March 2007 08:32:32 Bill Strosberg wrote: > All: > > I've lived exclusively in the Linux world for so long that I've lost a > lot of my ability to work in other environments without going insane. I > recently had to help an elderly neighbor (86!) configure his XP box for > a new Sympatico DSL install, and it was hellish. Yup...spend 8 hrs setting up my buddy in Grimsby over Christmas. Rule no 1. is "never" use any supplied CD on windows. Call support and get the coordinates for mail and then do the rest manually. Now another caveat. Shitpatico is famous for setting up the DSL cards incorrectly. However this can never be determined for some reason on the day you install/config. So be forwarned, support will tell you to start editing registry files when nothing else works in terms of setting up the basic connection..and in my case it was from India. Once you get this far with support dont do it as the card is imporperly installed at the HQ. Used to have a friend at Bell who would do this for me regularly when I was consulting but unfortunately he retired. > The Sympatico install > CD was so dumbed down it did everything in the background, installing > all kinds of unnecessary crap, without actually conveying any facts or > information. Lovely Flash progress bars did put on a show though! Yup can really screw up the system as well as it basically takes over the machine, similar to Google Desktop but in a much more offensive manner. > > MSN, Yahoo toolbars, MST.net accounts, logins stored by MSN, home page > highjacking - what a load of crap. There's a bunch of Active-X crap > going on in Internet Exploder that looks suspicious. Its all crap full of spyware. > > I was in the process of trying to extract my neighbor from the clutches > of Lookout Express, moving him to Thunderbird and Firefox (this is the > FLOSS part of the discussion for the list police), and discovered I knew > nothing about Sympatico server names, login methods (SSL, TLS, etc.), > authentication (secure?) etc. And it changes frequently too pending on who is the new manager. They really suck and support is almost non existant. > During the "magical" installation process I created a default email > account that works via the MSN webmail, and works in the > magically-altered Outlook Express. Trying to set the same parameters in > Thunderbird doesn't appear to work - I get rejected from the server. Yup this is standard as I recall. There mail settings are a little different to say the least. > Anyone know what Pathetico settings are necessary to talk to: > > POP3 > SMTP Sorry Bill cant help you with that. Perhaps others on the list can or just call support. Logging on to their support page requires a Bell account if you can believe it. http://service.sympatico.ca/index.cfm?method=categories.view&category_id=585 I feel your pain....:) Really I do and so I refused to help friends and family on Bell unless they moved to Rogers or anyone else. I refuse to touch or support Bell's crap, and this is from a guy who grew up with Ma Bell as a proud Canadian institution. Deregulation has killed the notion of quality, its simply profit now regardless of how its generated. -- /ch