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Reaching
this page is half the battle. Your are a few minutes away from
freedom.
I
have been told, and, have read about nightmares people have on
AOL especially when it comes to email. All the emails reside on
the AOL server, so does your address book.
Forwarding
your AOL emails to another account is tedious, but fairly easy.
The migration of your email address book is the biggest hassle
and involves risks. In general, people don't like to loose their
address book. There are softwares that do the trick but they
cost close to $50. Here freedom is free.
We
have discovered an easy and safe way to do this migration. The
method uses software that is already existing on many computers,
if you don't have it, will show you where to get it.
The
software you need is the following:
1.
Netscape Navigator, I used version 7.1
2.
Outlook Express (not Outlook). For Outlook Express, I used
version 6
You
can download Netscape at:
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp
You
can download Outlook Express at:
Internet
Explorer Latest Version (English) which includes Outlook
Express.
All
we are going to do is show you how to have these software
communicate with each others to copy you address book from AOL
into Outlook Express. Copying is safer because your original
will remain on the AOL server.
In
Netscape, there is a function that allows you to synchronize
Netscape and AOL, meaning you will have two address books that
are mirrors of each other. The following is how you do it:
Synchronizing Entries with Your Webmail or AOL Address Book
You can synchronize address books in your Netscape Webmail or AOL account with
your Netscape Personal Address Book. If you add, edit, or delete an
address in one address book, you can automatically update the other address books so that
both address books match.
Caution: in order to synchronize your address book, you must already have an AOL or Netscape screen name. If you do not yet have a screen name, you can
create a new one at http://home.netscape.com.
To synchronize an address book, in the browser, click window
then click address book, the address book screen or window
opens:
1. In the Address Book window, click Sync on the toolbar or select Sync Netscape Address Book from the Tools menu.
2. Mail & Newsgroups prompts you to enter the user name (screen name) and password for the account you want to use for address book synchronization.
For example, if you want to synchronize your Personal Address Book with your Netscape Webmail address book, enter your Webmail user name and password. If you want to synchronize your Personal Address Book with your AOL address book, enter your AOL user name and password.
3. Click OK to begin synchronization.
Now
we have 2 address books, one of them on your computer, outside
AOL, hurray!!!
Next
step is to get this address book outside the Netscape program
and accessible to other programs such as Outlook Express. The
following is how to do it:
Exporting
a Netscape Address Book
You can export a Netscape address book in one of these file formats: Netscape (.ldif), tab-delimited (.tab), comma-separated (.csv), or text (.txt) formats.
To export an address book, begin from the Address Book window by
clicking window in your browser and selecting address book:
1. Choose the address book that you want to export.
2. Open the Tools menu, and select Export.
3. In the Export Address Book dialog box, choose the location where you want to save the address book
file (I chose desktop).
4. Choose the file format for the exported address book (.ldif, comma-separated, or
tab-delimited)(I chose .ldif).
5. Enter a name for the address book file.
6. Click Save.
Importing
your Address Book into Outlook Express
I
created an address book in Netscape and Exported it to my
desktop. Now, the address book is accessible to other programs.
The file extension of the file I exported was .ldif. The next
thing is to use Outlook Express to import the file. The
following is the page from Microsoft that tells you how to do
it, it is very simple. In the link I am posting, it mentions
older versions of Outlook Express, I used 6, which is newer, and
it worked fine. The following is the link at Microsoft where you
could find the simple directions:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;238892
Good
Luck!!!! and since it is free, assess independently, and use at
your own risk.
The
names Netscape, Microsoft, Outlook, Outlook Express, AOL, and
Internet Explorer are the properties of their respective
companies.
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