America Online is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. In fact, the Mac OS X version may have come preinstalled on your Mac (look in the Applications folder). If not, you can download it from http://downloads.channel.aol.com/macproducts, or pick up a free AOL starter CD at your local Circuit City.
When you use the Macintosh version of the software for the first time, just plug in your existing screen name and password.
The beauty of AOL is that it stores your mail, address book, buddy list, and favorites online . You can check your email one day at the office on a PC and the following night at home on the Mac, and you'll always see the same messages there. It makes no difference if you connect to the service using a Windows PC, a Macintosh, or a kerosene- powered abacus.
This is all really good news, of course, but you may have one headache in performing the switch: your Personal Filing Cabinet. If you've been saving email messages into this virtual filing drawer , the news isn't quite as good: these messages are saved on the PC, not online. So when you switch to the Macintosh, your Personal Filing Cabinet will be empty.
Here are your options at this point:
Be content with only the last 30 days' worth of old mail, and the last week's worth of new mail. This is what lives on the America Online computers, no matter what computer you use to access it. When you move to the Mac, that much email will immediately appear the first time you use AOL.
Fire up your old PC and open each message in your Personal Filing Cabinet. Click the Forward button, and type in your own AOL address. You're basically emailing each message to yourself.
Once the messages have arrived on the Mac, you can save them into its Personal Filing Cabinet. Of course, you were the sender, so you can no longer click Reply to send a response to whoever originally wrote you. (If that's ever necessary, you can always copy and paste the sender's address into your reply.)
Once all your information is in AOL for Mac OS X, you can, if you want, move the information into Apple's own Internet programs: iChat, Address Book, Mail, and Safari. Just download AOL Service Assistant from http://downloads.channel.aol.com/macproducts, and click through the various steps.
By the final screen, all your bookmarks, contacts, screen names , and email settings will be waiting for you in Apple's programs, which are a lot more powerful (not to mention attractive) than the AOL software itself.