impleri

So, I got an email last night from my universities Vice Chancellor for Technology saying that students who run Windows should not get Vista yet because it is incompatible with:

• Symantec Antivirus
• The Wireless VPN
• Blackboard
• Webmail
• Pharos public printer system

OK, I can see it not being compatible with actual software on the computer (Symantec and the VPN client), but Blackboard? Webmail? Bull. These are web apps that run off of old technology that any modern browser can handle: HTML and javascript. That’s it. I’ve gotten these things to run in lynx, a text-only browser that is run from the command line. I don’t think Microsoft screwed up IE that much in Vista that these no longer work. The university says that in Vista, both of these services have “limited” functionality. I’m sorry DU, but that’s a lie. BOTH of these sites will work as well in IE7 on Windows XP and IE7 on Vista. Users may need to allow content from these sites (i.e. change a setting), but that’s it. I have found that the techs at my university are rather ignorant of operating systems. Case in point: I run Iceweasel in Debian. When I go to the university login, I get a message saying that my browser isn’t supported. Why? It’s because the script reads my User Agent as Netscape 1.8 instead of Iceweasel 2.0. My first response was to fake the User Agent as Firefox 2.0 (which is “supported” by my university). Well, even as FF 2.0, the script still reads it incorrectly. So what did I do? Sent an email to the tech guys saying that the script isn’t reading my User Agent correctly. Their response?

At this time the Helpdesk only supports Windows XP sp2 and Apple’s OSX. The warning message you see is because your browser is not one supported in WebCentral.

Sorry, but User Agents have nothing to do with Operating Systems. If a web app gets a User Agent as Firefox 2.0–a “supported” browser–it should treat like FF 2.0 There shouldn’t be a “well, it only works for FF 2.0 in Windows XP.” FF2.0 is FF 2.0, regardless of what system it is installed on. After reiterating this fact to the “tech support,” they said they’d forward the info to the script developer. Thank you, that’s all I asked for. And one last thing, I’m not going to install Windows XP SP2 on my computer so that I can use the school’s “preferred software.” I can do everything I need to on my computer without needing the crap they give out. I already have a SSH client, so I don’t need the crap one provided by them. I don’t need a “secured wireless VPN” because my system is secure. I don’t need Symantec AV because ClamAV works better. Yeah, it’s a pain living in a Microsoft world, but I survive rather nicely. And, unlike their computers, mine’s been running for 19 days straight. The only thing I can’t do is print directly to their networked printers because it goes through Pharos and I haven’t researched how to make it work (I don’t print much at school). Nevermind…thanks to the Princeton Unix Group, I have enough info to print to the Pharos server through CUPS.
So, in summary: “tech support” at my university is a joke. Vista isn’t worth the upgrade. Try Linux.