A long time ago, I signed up for Yahoo's dial-up service for an ISP. I remember thinking that, for $9.95 a month, I got a big Yahoo mailbox to hold all my spam, but the trade off was that my joshtretakoff ID was tied to it: if I ever cancelled, poof! No more Yahoo ID.
Why a big deal? Here's a secret: I hate web mail. My typing skills are so bad, I rely on Outlook to correct everything. So, I needed my webmail to come to my Outlook. With Yahoo, you can only do that if you have a premium service. Yes, the tretakoff.com account works fine, but I try to avoid the spam going there. So, for subscriptions, purchases, etc., it's to the Yahoo account they go.
Until Gmail.
Gmail is Google's invitation only webmail. HUGE storage. Easy interface. And, as of last week, POP (Outlook) access! Did I mention it's FREE?? You don't have to be brilliant to see what happens next: I created a new Yahoo ID (jtretakoff; technically, re-created from my Sharper Image days), and transitioned over. I called Yahoo, cancelled my service, and...
Nothing.
Nada.
ZIP.
I still have full access to my joshtretakoff info. Same everything. In other words, Yahoo scared the hell out of me for over a year from cancelling, and they LIED. I feel so...sob...used. ;-)
So, jtretakoff does have one good feature: the new My Yahoo has full RSS support, so I can truly get all my info in one place!
By the way, why did I drop the ISP? I travel so much now, I just pick up WiFi in whatever city I'm in. That's the new world we live in...and I love it! If I need dial up, I just get it from my cell, through my Palm, via GPRS. That's a mouthful!
So that's the Yahoo migration story!
Why a big deal? Here's a secret: I hate web mail. My typing skills are so bad, I rely on Outlook to correct everything. So, I needed my webmail to come to my Outlook. With Yahoo, you can only do that if you have a premium service. Yes, the tretakoff.com account works fine, but I try to avoid the spam going there. So, for subscriptions, purchases, etc., it's to the Yahoo account they go.
Until Gmail.
Gmail is Google's invitation only webmail. HUGE storage. Easy interface. And, as of last week, POP (Outlook) access! Did I mention it's FREE?? You don't have to be brilliant to see what happens next: I created a new Yahoo ID (jtretakoff; technically, re-created from my Sharper Image days), and transitioned over. I called Yahoo, cancelled my service, and...
Nothing.
Nada.
ZIP.
I still have full access to my joshtretakoff info. Same everything. In other words, Yahoo scared the hell out of me for over a year from cancelling, and they LIED. I feel so...sob...used. ;-)
So, jtretakoff does have one good feature: the new My Yahoo has full RSS support, so I can truly get all my info in one place!
By the way, why did I drop the ISP? I travel so much now, I just pick up WiFi in whatever city I'm in. That's the new world we live in...and I love it! If I need dial up, I just get it from my cell, through my Palm, via GPRS. That's a mouthful!
So that's the Yahoo migration story!
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