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September 07, 2005
Filing for Aid? Better Run Windows
Gary Krakow on filing for aid now that you have survived a hurricane, have electricity and a computer. Better be Windows though:
Yes, it turns out that to make a claim with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Individual Assistance Center, your Web browser must be Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 or higher and you must have JavaScript enabled. It even says so right on the page itself. One problem: IE6 isn't available for Macintosh or Linux computers.
Mac user Gary Mullins wrote Monday on the MacInTouch Web site:
"My 90-year old mother sat out Katrina in her brother’s home next door in Diamondhead, MS, about eight miles from the Mississippi coast where the hurricane’s eye hit. They survived without injury but with massive destruction to their homes, and my mother has lost most of her possessions. I brought her to my home in California yesterday and this morning went to the FEMA website to register to start the assistance process.
To my dismay, our Federal emergency agency requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and only IE 6, to use the website for disaster assistance. I don’t want to be political about this, but this smacks of a serious leadership failure that the use of the Internet is reserved for only the Windows community.”
When reached Tuesday afternoon, a FEMA spokeswoman said they were aware of the problem and had passed it along to their tech guys to try to resolve the issue. The spokeswoman I spoke with declined to venture a guess on when the problem might be solved, however.
Oops. I'm sure they are going to fix that real soon.
Posted by at September 7, 2005 05:04 PM
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Comments
Oops is right.
Posted by: Slublog at September 7, 2005 06:22 PM
Anyone with exposure to government IT knows it is a MS-only deal (I call it Microsoft Slut Complex). They will not fix it, I know this is a conservative blog but Microsoft generally contributes more to the Republicans.
Posted by: ChrisHillman at September 7, 2005 07:04 PM
Hey, where's my Microsoft money?
Posted by: Slublog at September 7, 2005 08:37 PM
Slubolog: I think Ace got it all. Bummer.
Posted by: Old Coot at September 7, 2005 09:34 PM
Slublog: Sorry re typo...preview should be my friend.
Posted by: Old Coot at September 7, 2005 09:37 PM
I don't think this is comes down to windows/not windows, that's almost a given this day (unfortunatally). It does fly in the face of everything we're being told by LARGE computer security groups like SANS, CERT, US-CERT to steer clear of IE and use Firefox, Opera or other alternate browsers. I know based on my use of Firefox and doing some web development that it's not hard to accomodate other browsers should you choose to do so. Incredible....
Posted by: sarclmbr at September 8, 2005 10:11 AM
I just tried Opera and successfully got to the first page of filing for a claim. Even took a screen-shot as proof. Somebody should try it on Linux to see how far they get.
Posted by: Yeff at September 8, 2005 12:21 PM
Is Opera any good?
Posted by: Slublog at September 8, 2005 12:38 PM
Opera is great, especially since I got it for free when they were giving it away for their 10th birthday.
There's a free version that serves up mostly unobtrusive ads that you should try out.
Posted by: Yeff at September 8, 2005 12:54 PM
I have used Opera before and like it although I do run Firefox exclusivly now. Even "unobtrusive" ads bug the daylight out of me, ads, popups and spam all rate close to the bane of my existance.
I wasn't quick enough to grab a free license when they had thier birthday bash but I doubt I would have moved from Firefox.
Posted by: sarclmbr at September 8, 2005 04:02 PM