The exclusive SECRETS beach-ball-killer trick (America Online 2.x only)
If there’s one thing we hate, it’s the America Online spinning-beach-ball cursor. You click some button, the beach ball appears, it hangs around for about two minutes, and all you get for your efforts is the “host has failed to respond” message. Pressing Command-period doesn’t stop the beach ball, and you can’t do anything while it’s spinning.
Here’s how you can regain control — and stop the spinning beach ball midway through its life cycle, whenever it appears. Grab an AOL text file or saved mail file. Rename it “AOL Beach Ball Killer” or something. Put it into your Apple menu.
Next time you’re facing the beach ball and not feeling like waiting up, just click somewhere on the Desktop (to switch from AOL to the Finder), then choose that AOL Beach Ball Killer from your Apple menu — and presto! The beach ball goes away, and control returns to you.
Alas, stopping the beach ball cursor doesn’t get you where you were trying to go — it doesn’t let you read the message you were trying to open, for example. However, it does allow you to do something else until the host feels more responsive.
