LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Mark Newton <newton@atdot.dotat.org>
  To  : John Edwards <isplist@pinnacle.net.au>
  Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 16:19:04 +1030

Re: another dammed government site

On Mon, Jan 29, 2001 at 10:23:18AM +1030, John Edwards wrote:

 > The online registration payment page at http://rls.roads.sa.gov.au/
 > downright refuses to let you in if you're running linux, your browser
 > must tell their server that it's running MacOS or windows. 
 > The government's defence for this is that the site is in beta, and they
 > can't possibly be expected to support all OS's. Oddly enough, this site
 > has been in 'beta' for nearly 3 years now. Ecommerce sites everywhere
 > else work with most browsers, leave it up to the powers-that-be to
 > choose a system that relies on a specific OS..
 
It's all a lot of crap, though:  The bit which you're "allowed" to run
if you have a blessed browser is written in Java, and it works just
fine on non-MS platforms -- I've used it many times with Netscape under
FreeBSD and IRIX, and never had a problem with it.  There's no reason at
all why they can't just remove the browser check, but the damn thing has
been there for 3 years anyway.

There's a URL which takes you straight through to it, bypassing the 
fashion-check that makes sure you're running an OS the Government thinks
is trendy.  I'm afraid to post it here, though, because someone from RLS
will probably see it and change it just to ruin my day.  Perhaps if you
ask them nicely they'll give it to you.

In any case, it's pretty pitiful customer service.  They've actually
implemented the technology which would make us happy with their service,
but they've hidden it behind a Javascript wall which prevents us from
using it.  Pretty boneheaded, eh?

 > To rub salt into the wound, the error page
 > (http://rls.roads.sa.gov.au/Ecomm/BadBrows.html) tells me to 'upgrade'
 > my operating system to suit their site..

Yeah.  To OSs and browsers which haven't been produced for 3 years,
no less.  

   - mark

--------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried an internal modem,                    newton@atdot.dotat.org
     but it hurt when I walked.                          Mark Newton
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