[thelist] 403.9 error

[McCreath_David]

>From: Martin
>
>David the Alaskan wrote:
>
>>Some teachers in our district are working with a contractor on an
>>educational site. The contractor is using lots of frames and JavaScript
and
>>several Java applets.
>
>Hi David
>
>This isn't helping you directly, but has anyone asked the questions:
>"Why is the contractor doing it that way? What's the brief (tech
>standard particularly) they're working to?"

Hi, Martin --

Heck if I know. As far as I can tell, the tech standard they're developing
to is "NS4+,IE4+,broadband
access,Java-enabled,JavaScript-enabled,800x600,patience of Job,high gewgaw
tolerance". It's a very, very clear case of bad management and gee-whiz web
development.

It's being designed by a company that has a less-than-stellar reputation
around these parts, especially in web development, and funded by somebody
else entirely. Our District's involvement is really only in the curriculum
development. I've offered my opinion of the usability and accesibility and
not one thing has been changed, so since they're not looking to bring me in
as a conusultant, I'm trying to stay out of it.

I was completely unaware of this project until the problems started
occurring, when suddenly the issue became our network. All I'm trying to do
now is establish conclusively that the problem is not on our network. Adding
to the difficulty is the fact that the Project Manager at the contractor's
apparently knows very little about the web or its attendant technologies.

For those of you following with rapt attention, I did discover that we
present a *range* of IPs (209.165.xxx.xxx), and there shouldn't be a way for
an entire lab to have the same IP number, so that's not the issue. I still
haven't found out if they're actually using a database on the site (it
doesn't look like they are), but that's next.

My next step after that is to pull in our network admin (a former US Marines
drill sergeant) and let him deal with these folks. :)

David