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Losing all your friends
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More from Ask AllisonThere's nothing like losing a good friend — growing apart or moving away can be painful experiences for children and adults alike. But what happens when all of your friends up and disappear?
It can happen. Just ask Diane. One click and her buddy list was completely wiped out.
Here's the situation as she explains it:
I need help. With one click of my mouse the contents in my buddy list window disappeared. I have tried everything Windows XP and AOL offer as helps and nothing has worked to get the names back. Do you have an answer? I'm hoping with one click all disappeared (and) one click will return the names.
Here's the response from Rick Simon of Ventura County Computers (http://www.vccomputers.com):
Well, well, well. Another AOL user left high and dry, it doesn't surprise me. AOL has been hemorrhaging for quite some time now.
Unfortunately, you have failed to do what so many of us are guilty of. Taking personal responsibility of backing up what's important to us. Just as the buddy list was one click away from destruction, so is your whole computer. So it is imperative to put what is important to you in two places to avoid tragedy.
Now that I've verbally abused you, here's what you can do to avoid this problem in the future. The AOL buddy list is stored on their servers. The only way to save it is to sign on to AIM and in the file menu choose Export and that will export your buddy list. You will have to rebuild your buddy list manually from your address book.
Hey, if they really are your buddies, hopefully they'll try to contact you from their buddy list. Who knows?
Hope that helps for future use. As always, if you have a question, please send it my way at abruce@VenturaCountyStar.com
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