Subject: Re: Any Ideas about this problem?

From: Patrick Forbes <patrickforbes@...>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:31:40 -0400

Don't waste any more of your time with Earthlink. Attention (Product  
Life) spans are too short. No company wants to seriously support  
anything more than five (5) years old, nowadays. We're pretty much on  
our own here. I just learned Cidco, who made the thing, filed for  
bankruptcy this past January. My calls and faxes to them for their  
engineering assistance went unanswered and I expect the letter I  
posted to them a week ago will be coming back soon, too.

Regardless of your choices, chances you will lose all programmed data  
are pretty great. Please write down ALL programming information.  
Start with 'Extras', 'Settings' then 'Details' and ensure you've no  
typos. You will most certainly be asked to "Create New User" where  
you'll need to type it all in just as you saw it:

User Name:
Dial Up Number:
E-mail address:
E-mail Password:
POP3 Server:
SMTP Server:
ISP Account:
ISP Password:
Primary DNS:

I photocopied all the screens and filed the copies for posterity. Six  
years later I needed them!

Press FN, Shift and T with one hand and stick a pin in the Reset hole  
in the back. The Diagnostic Menu will appear.

Press the 3 for the F/A Tester. The five grey keys aren't  
operational. Select the test of your choice. Start with Fast Test.  
When it's done press the Reset again to get back to the Diag....  
screen. Press Q to return the machine to operational status

If anyone else has additional tricks to share along this line, please  
don't be shy. I have a working machine I can experiment with at will.

Verizon ($8.95/m), Look ($4.95/m), BasicISP and Mid-Maine have all  
said they 'may' be able to provide service. I'm waiting for more info  
from them to set up a trial with each on my machine.

More later.....

Please consider the environment before printing this email note.

Patrick

musicalman77" musicalman77@... musicalman77
     Date: Sat Apr 19, 2008 2:56 pm ((PDT))

Good luck with getting any kind of help out of Earthlink's big-wigs.
I think they are trying hard to wash their hands of MailStation. My
mom, also 90, had a problem with her machine.  A friend who use to
work computer models four levels down from the (U.S.) President was
there the other day trying to remedy the trouble.  He also spent about
3 hours on the phone with..."those fools in India" (nicely put!) and
all to no avail.  When pressed for information on repair or
replacement, they got rude.

So, I tried the online chat with Earthlink CS.  After confirming the
persistent rumor that there are no NEW MailStation accounts being
established, they just kept referring me to the 800 number (aka "fools
in India") and ASSURING me these folks would help.  I kept insisting
we'd already tried that, and the argument became circular and a
standoff.  So, I asked, "Well, what about repair or replacement"
(which they have done in the past) and was told, "She can buy a new
unit on her own."  When I said that I understood that accounts were
not being transferred to new machines, I was referred to... you
guessed it... the fools in India.  I finally gave up and told her
"Thanks for nothing."

Mom's only trouble is that she can no longer send to groups, and any
attempt to access her former groups freezes up the machine and it has
to be reset.  We suspect a bad spot in the flash memory.  I told her
to just live with sending individual e-mails or do her group people
from individual e-mail (I think you can do three recipients at a time)
and be glad the thing is still working at all, since she just re-upped
for another year on the service.

I guess if the thing breaks, I'll hook her up with my old WebTV unit
(which is now MSN TV) and hope she can learn to use it.

--- In [email-masked], "Patrick Forbes"
<patrickforbes@...> wrote:
>
> An update:
>
> 3 hours on the phone with about a dozen attempts got account turned
back on despite
> those incompetent fools in India and MailStation resumed operation.
That was all that was
> wrong with her original unit.
>
> Anyone have an actual address, telephone number and a bigwig's name
of Earthlink's HQ
> wherever it is? I need compensation for these many months of no
service, grief and
> frustration at the hands of those imbeciles they insist on calling
agents.

Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
1b. Re: Mailstation 5 months off line
     Posted by: "Marcus Herrera" djgizmo1@... djgizmo1
     Date: Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:26 pm ((PDT))

Talk about dealing those people. I was doing a system board replacement.
I called and was transfered to them. I was getting upset because I
couldn't understand what they were saying. They could understand my
name, asked me to spell it out several times. Getting it wrong. I ended
hanging up on them and call back hoping on getting a different person.
Man how can't you not understand the name "marcus". Off shore call
centers sucks!!!
gizmo on sidekick

Messages in this topic (10)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. Any Ideas about this problem?
     Posted by: "musicalman77" musicalman77@... musicalman77
     Date: Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:09 pm ((PDT))

I posted in part about this in the reply to Patrick, but would like
your ideas on any way to fix this problem (and like him, I'm in OK and
the machine is in OH, but I may visit there mid-summer).

When I was visiting in December, I took the machine over to a friend's
house because she had an old parallel-port printer.  I wanted to print
out Mom's address book for two reasons: 1) a planned e-mail
announcement by my sister to Mom's friends for her 90th birthday card
shower, and 2) paper backup in case her machine ever got wiped, as it
did once before.  (You'd THINK they'd have a way to back up the
address book to the associated EarthLink webmail account, but that'd
be far too easy...)

Mom's only trouble is that she can no longer send to groups, and any
attempt to access her former groups freezes up the machine and it has
to be reset. We suspect a bad spot in the flash memory. I told her
to just live with sending individual e-mails or do her group people
from individual e-mail (I think you can do three recipients at a time)
and be glad the thing is still working at all, since she just re-upped
for another year on the service.

Well, in the course of printing out the address book, this idiot
friend ignored my advice and tried to stuff more paper in the printer
during the print job, jamming it.  I got it restarted, but this may
have glitched something in the MailStation, because once I got it back
to Mom's, one of her groups stopped working and would freeze the
machine.  We suspect a problem in the flash memory, like when you pull
your jump drive out of the USB port as it's being accessed.  I was
leaving that day and didn't have time to mess with it.  So, so she has
had two people look at it since - a young computer geek and an
old-time computer guru, and trying to fix it for her.  The young guy
had limited time but agreed with the "flash memory" diagnosis.  The
old guy spent hours, alone, and on the phone with India, trying to fix
the problem.  Now, apparently NONE of the groups are working at all
and they cannot set up any new mail groups.

Anybody have any ideas what's wrong or how to fix it without the
Indians being involved?

Thanks.

---

From: "wayne markis" <waynem@...>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:55:20 -0700

The problem is that you can do that with the smaller mailstations,
but you can't do most of this with the model 350, which is the
only one that will allow you to get email graphics, and print
in color.

Although the Model 350 has more memory, it also has more
security for locking you from getting in to work on it.

It requires that it get an email from Earthlink to program itself
and move to a working account. The "special" email has
MIME control characters in it, which can not be sent over the
internet thru other ISP's since they are filtered out.

Only a direct connection to the ISP (Earthlink) will allow these
characters to be received by the machine.

The machine goes to a special account on Earthlink, which is the
serial number of the machine @earthlink . It receives the special
encoded message, and then changes to "Your" account.

You can not send a message to these "Special" accounts, Earthlink
will not pass the message.  But you CAN log into these accounts,
and see what the mailstation is getting, except for the special characters,
which you won't see or be able to print out.

You would think that Earthlink would be happy to add customers using these
mailstations, but that does not seem to be the case ???

If you think the Indian call center is bad, wait a few more years until
Earthlink
finds a cheaper place to hire labor, and then they move it from India to
there !!!

As the big shots are making their millions at the top !!!

Wayne

  -----Original Message-----
  From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On
Behalf Of Patrick Forbes
  Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 10:32 AM
  To: [email-masked]
  Cc: musicalman77@...; djgizmo1@...
  Subject: [mailstation] Re: Any Ideas about this problem?

  Don't waste any more of your time with Earthlink. Attention (Product Life)
spans are too short. No company wants to seriously support anything more
than five (5) years old, nowadays. We're pretty much on our own here. I just
learned Cidco, who made the thing, filed for bankruptcy this past January.
My calls and faxes to them for their engineering assistance went unanswered
and I expect the letter I posted to them a week ago will be coming back
soon, too.

  Regardless of your choices, chances you will lose all programmed data are
pretty great. Please write down ALL programming information. Start with
'Extras', 'Settings' then 'Details' and ensure you've no typos. You will
most certainly be asked to "Create New User" where you'll need to type it
all in just as you saw it:

  User Name:
  Dial Up Number:
  E-mail address:
  E-mail Password:
  POP3 Server:
  SMTP Server:
  ISP Account:
  ISP Password:
  Primary DNS:

  Press FN, Shift and T with one hand and stick a pin in the Reset hole in
the back. The Diagnostic Menu will appear.

  Press the 3 for the F/A Tester. The five grey keys aren't operational.
Select the test of your choice. Start with Fast Test. When it's done press
the Reset again to get back to the Diag.... screen. Press Q to return the
machine to operational status

  Verizon ($8.95/m), Look ($4.95/m), BasicISP and Mid-Maine have all said
they 'may' be able to provide service. I'm waiting for more info from them
to set up a trial with each on my machine.

  More later.....

  Patrick

    An update:

  Thanks.