posted 2007/07/04 at 14:39
As I've mentioned here in recent months, I've had a recurring problem accessing some Websites from this computer. The problem seems to be tied to submitting forms on certain Websites; for some reason, when I try to submit them on some Websites, the connection invariably times out and nothing goes through. Although I have no way of verifying this for sure, I think the problem is related to Websites that use an interstitial page between when you click on the submit button and when the data is actually sent, so that another page pops up that usually says "Your data is being submitted, please hold." (This is a pretty good way to get around the problem of people accidentally pressing Submit buttons multiple times.) The interstitial never pops up for me, and the page just hangs there until I get a message saying that the connection has timed out. In the past I'd just wait until I got onto one of UT's computers to use Websites like this, but that's now not really an option for me. (Just for reference, the problem occurs in both Internet Explorer and Firefox.)
In the past I had thought that perhaps this was being caused by some weird function of my Norton Internet Security software, and given the recent problems I've had with being forced to reinstall it every couple of weeks, I was all too ready to assume Norton was the culprit when I ran into the same problem earlier today. The thing is, I was now having this problem when I was trying to apply for a job I was interested in, so in this case the problem was much more serious, and even if I could still get on the lab computers at UT, the whole campus is closed because of the holiday today so I couldn't even get into the Student Union, let alone the computer lab there. Given that my brother-in-law was out with my sister and Jeff catching Sicko just now, though, I figured I might as well fire up his computer and see what happened with it.
Well, my brother-in-law doesn't use Norton, and instead seems to use the same hodgepodge of various freeware security programmes that I heard of most students using when I was going to school. He also has an earlier version of Internet Explorer. In spite of all of this, however, I ran into the exact same problems at the exact same Websites. Ignoring the fact that this has gotten me quite irritated at the present moment, I can't believe that there's any software problem at work here now. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe there's something that our cable company is doing to block us from being able to access these Websites properly, although I can't think of why, or even how, they would do anything like this. Still, like Sherlock Holmes said, once you've eliminated the impossible, then what's left, however unlikely, must be true. Unfortunately, given our past record with said cable company, I'm actually going to go to UT tomorrow to see if I can use a computer there simply because it'll be easier for me than having to deal with the cable company.
This was actually my first time using my brother-in-law's computer, and even though I know he brought the computer over from England, I kind of assumed that he'd be using an American-style keyboard by now, if only because I know he uses computers a lot at his job here. However, he still has his old keyboard, which was a huge pain for me to get used to because the quote and @ symbols were reversed from the keyboard layout I'm used to. Perhaps it's because I've been using computers from such a young age, but having a new layout thrust on me there, even if it was only a few special characters that got moved around, required a huge adjustment for me. Unless he's somehow convinced his employers to let him use that different layout at work, I really don't see how he could switch back and forth between the different layouts at work and at home. Granted, I'm already annoyed at this whole problem I'm having using certain Websites, but I was nearly going bonkers there every time I went to type in my e-mail address and had a " pop up in place of an @.
Okay, you and Joe are making me think that I'm being tailed by some kind of "Mac Mafia" here that's going to keep pestering me until I finally switch over ... (no, not really, just meant it as a joke).
Still, I would point out that the recent times I've used Macs at Bowling Green State University, they weren't even able to load up half the Websites I wanted to visit properly. (Then again, the Macs in question only had Safari on them, so maybe I wouldn't have those problems if they had Firefox.)
Mac + Firefox = 99.9% of sites can be accessed fine...and half of the remaining 0.1% can be accessed by hunting down an old copy of IE for Mac. The remaining 0.05% can be accessed by installing XP on your Intel Mac (I still have a non-Intel, so I use Virtual PC)
Now, Microsoft no longer makes IE for Mac...but Apple has started making Safari for Windows. Which company do you think is moving in the right direction? :-p
Seriously...all the problems you talk about with your computers are things that I just haven't had to deal with in the 3 1/2 years I've owned my iMac G4. I'll save the reasons why Mac users are more productive for another post. ;-)
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon