AOL Did It

The End of My AOL Website and Journals

I checked at 6:00 p.m. to see if AOL removed my website and my journals from the Internet. They did! Thus ends a season in my life.

Mr. Dickie

Last Two Days

There is transcendent power in a strong intergenerational family. An effectively interdependent family of children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins can be a powerful force in helping people have a sense of who they are and where they came from and what they stand for. (Stephen R. Covey, Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People, October 29)

LAST TWO DAYS

Please be aware that on October 31st AOL will discontinue support for the genealogy website I have maintained on their service for many years. If there is something on the website that you'd like you should either print it or save a copy of the webpage file either today or tomorrow.

This blog, Henthorn Genelaogy News, is provided by Google. I'll continue to post here from time to time as I decide what I want to do next with my interest in genealogy.

Thanks again to everyone who shared information and support over the years.

Mr. Dickie

Nearest of Kin

I am myself, my own nearest of kin; I am dearest to myself. (Terence in At My Best, 25 October)

Reminder

Photo: Corel

If you are interested in the information on my AOL genealogy website and you want to keep some of the information only a few more days remain to take action. On 31 October 2008 the website will be removed from the Internet by AOL. I haven't decided whether I will rebuild the website somewhere else. Therefore if you want something you should either print out the webpage or save the webpage on your own computer.

I did archived all of the pieces of the website on a thumb drive. While I was doing that work I noticed that the Monroe County, Ohio History page had 8,900 visits. I estimate that there were at least 27,000 visits made to my homepage during the life of the website. I estimate because around the time the counter reached 25,000 it was somehow reset to zero by AOL.

I've given some thought to whether I should restrict access to the information if I decide to make it available again on the Internet. Because of privacy concerns there is always a possiblity of offending someone if everyone on the Internet has access to the genealogy information. Access by "invitation only" could reduce or eliminate this issue. If you have an opinion about this I'd like to hear from you.

Mr. Dickie

Henthorn Genealogy Website Downloaded

Yesterday I worked most of the day downloading all of the webpages I'd uploaded to my free AOL webspace. I put all of the files on a thumb drive that I bought for this purpose. Completing this project insured that I have a copy of everything on a device that I can move from one computer to another.

After my genealogy website is discontinued at the end of the month I will still be able to retrieve and share any of the information that someone might request. Also, I'll be able to put any of the files, I choose, back on the Internet should I decide that's something I want to do.

I've thought of one more project that I need to accomplish. There is a link from a Monroe County, Ohio webpage to a document that I've made available on my webspace for many years. That link will break at the end of the month. Today I'm trying to make contact with the person responsible for the page with the link. I'm not having much luck. I tried a couple of Email addresses and they were out of date.

Mr. Dickie's New Google Blogs

For a few months I have been keeping a personal journal (Mr. Dickie's Blog) on Google. I've been pleased with how the service works.
I announced earlier that AOL will discontinue Journal support on October 31, 2008. Google agreed to move AOL journals to their service. They created an easy procedure to facilitate the transfer.

I'm pleased to announce that I have successfully moved my three AOL journals to Google. As of October 21st I will no longer post new information to any of the AOL journals. Certain housekeeping tasks remain to be accomplished before the three new Google blogs will be configured to my satisfaction. Please be patient as I go through that process.

I'm thankful that Google was willing to support AOL users by providing support for our journals.

My four Google blogs are as follows:

Personal Blog:
http://mrdickiesblog.blogspot.com/

Arrow Prayers:
http://arrowprayers.blogspot.com/ (976 entries)

Henthorn Genealogy News:
http://henthorn-website-news.blogspot.com (130 entries)

Henthorn Obituaries:
http://henthorn-website-obits.blogspot.com (50 entries)

Mr. Dickie

The End

AOL recently announced that they will discontinue support of private websites, AOL Hometown, and journals as of 31 Oct 2008. This is probably another sign of the ultimate demise of AOL as an Internet powerhouse.

This announcement will impact me personally. For many years I have maintained the Henthorn Genealogy Website in free space provided by AOL. I've also been posting to my Arrow Prayers journal and several others. I estimate that there have been over 27,000 visits to the genealogy homepage since I added a visit counter.

I'll probably create an Arrow Prayers blog on Google. I don't plan to move any of the prayers from the AOL journal archive to the new blog.

I don't know what I will do about the genealogy information. I suggest that if there is anything you want you either print out the information or make a copy of the file on your own computer prior to October 31st.

I currently have a personal blog on Google. If you are interested in keeping track of what I am doing please read the blog postings from time to time. After October 31st this will be the best place to find out what I decided to do.

Mr. Dickie's Blog: http://mrdickiesblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks to everyone who shared information and encouragement during the years that AOL provided this service. I hope you found something of interest from time to time.

Dick Henthorn

Tags: MrDickie'sBlog, HenthornWebsite

AOL Drops Website and Journal Support

The other day AOL sent an Email to all users announcing that as of 31 October 2008 the company will drop support of free websites and free journals. For a long time there had been rumors that AOL would take drastic steps in order to survive. In this writer's opinion this announcement indicates that the company is now in "survival mode."

For many years I have maintained a genealogy website in the free AOL website space. At the end of the month the website will no longer be available.

Needless to say I am very disappointed about this turn of events.

If there's anything on the website that you have put off printing or copying you should take steps to copy or print the information to your computer before the end of the month.

Creating this website took months, if not years. To illustrate the scoop of the problem, there are 129 postings to the Henthorn Website News alone.

At this time I am not certain whether I want to do the work required to move the information to the server of some other website provider. There's a strong possiblity that I will just accept what has happened as a sign that it is time for me to cease sharing genealogy information on the Internet via a personal website. There are other approaches that I'm going to think about.

To everyone who shared information or gave encouragement over the years I extend my thanks.

Dick Henthorn

Tags: Henthorn Website, End of AOL?