In a message dated 9/11/02 7:49:16 AM Central Daylight Time, HOOKSETS@aol.com writes: > > I have yet to access the "Free" Denton Journal. I signed up and did > everything they asked to do. When I do the search I find hundreds of > articles > listed. When I try to see these articles I get a page saying I must pay. > When > I write to their customer service or their email address it bounces back > to > me as undeliverable. > How do you do it???? > > I am definitely surprised. I have no difficulty using the system except for occasional spells when the system goes down. Have you downloaded the viewing program? I don't think that would affect the problem you are having, but it wouldn't hurt to check. Are you limiting your search to the Denton paper? You have to go into advanced search to do this. First, log on. If the message comes back that you are logged on, then click on advanced next to the search space. Then fill in the family name to find every mention of your family name in the paper, or fill in the given and family name of a particular person you want to find. Then move down the list of options under advanced search and change the second block to search for exact name. Then move on down past years options (which I have not used since I want everyone!) and order of results (which doesn't work well for me because even if you tell it you want most recent first or oldest first, you will still get the results in order of the most hits). Then move to the newspaper selection -- fast way to get to Denton paper: type in D and hit the down arrow four times and then hit return. Then move to the section where you can tell the search engine how many matches you want to list on a page. I leave it at 10 to start with, but if I get a zillion matches, sometimes, I make it list higher numbers so it is easier to get to the article I last read (because I won't have to use the next page button at the bottom of the list of matches so many times!!). I also have not had difficulty getting technical help. I have left messages a couple of times. But, it will be a day or two before you get an answer if you do get through. I wish we actually lived near to each other so that I could just come over to your house and show you how it works! By the way, if you get any items in your list of matches that have a picture of a closed lock next to it, you are looking at articles which are not from the Denton paper. Rather, it is from a paper that is part of the paid subscription. Also, I wonder if the fact that the website sends an ad to become a paid member almost every time you ask to look at the full page picture of the page that has your family name in it is tricking you. If you are able to get to the thumbnail sketch and think you are being denied access because that ad pops up, then all you have to do is click on the X in the upper right hand corner of the ad and you will be able to see the page that is loading up. (Sometimes that takes a while if you are using your phone line to connect to the web and don't have DSL -- we have our connection through the cable company which is very fast, but we still have a little wait for the newspaper page to finally appear. It takes a long time to load up photograph type stuff -- which is actually what you are looking at when you see the newspaper page -- a photograph (microfilmed probably) of the page. At first, when I used this page, I thought I was not getting in when I simply was not waiting long enough for the computer to finish loading the image. That was when I had a dial-up phone connection. It is much better now that I have AoL cable connection. But if you are still on a dial-up line that is slow, just make sure you have some other stuff you can do between pulling up images! Like writing checks to pay bills!! Or the chance to play yet one more game of solitaire or mine field to further the process of driving you insane!) I hope this helps. Karen