[Discuss] UVic's new portal now available to students, unless they use Firefox

[Clarke Brunsdon]

On Fri, 2006-05-05 at 09:49 -0700, Adam Parkin wrote:
> So UVic has launched a new online portal service for students, the 
> e-mail I received outlining the servies is given below.  BUT, Firefox is 
> not one of the supported browsers, and upon going to the main USource 
> page (https://usource.uvic.ca)  you are greeted with a nice "Unsupported 
> browser" blurb.  So far as I can tell you can browse the site fine with 
> FF, but it does seem odd to me that the fastest growing, arguably most 
> secure, and most popular browser amongst the students I know is unsupported.
> 
> Why is the University so anti-OSS?  OpenOffice isn't installed in any of 
> the Windows labs on campus (the only lab I know of with OO is the Linux 
> lab in ELWB215, and even then it's a very old version of OO), Firefox is 
> installed in the Windows labs, but it's an older version (pre 1.5) and 
> even then students in early CSC courses (100 et al) are strongly 
> encouraged to use IE over FF.  And that lone Linux lab runs a bizarre 
> Linux distro that seems very quirky and unreliable (I've had those 
> machines lock up on me much more often than the Windows 2000 machines 
> across the hall).
> 
> Sorry for the mini-rant, just in a complaining kinda mood today I 
> suppose.... =8-p



Ha, I was composing practically the exact same email as I got this.

Buy yea, I can't decide whether to bitch or not. (about the FF thing)

I can't imagine 
A: getting anywhere
B: not sounding like a giant prick doing it

But I also have a tough time letting people get away with shit like
this.