Problem fixed with the script error in this thread, thanks for pointing it out Danny

Maybe it's because I know nothing about technology but I love MACCESS. It allows you to hit up everything at once. It's all there in front of you. I hate having to sign in numerous times just to check a different page (like webct). I find it to be a lot more convenient. And besides they gave free hot chocolate at their launch <3

Oh, it's great.....if it wasn't so poorly implemented.

It may not be a problem on larger screens, but on my Macbook I always get double scroll bars (which is very, very annoying) when trying to navigate stuff. And from what I can see, there are quite a few Macbooks around campus.

Also, netbook people probably can't see any content at all because of the massive header.

They should have looked at some other universities implementation. Some implement a free solution called uPortal. Used by Athabasca, Calgary, etc. it's specifically designed for higher-ed portals (and it's written in Java). It has way more features, too.

I'm not 100% sure, but if there's no additional browsers installed on the MacBooks and iMacs which are now taking over our libraries... we'd have to boot into Windows at this point to access student information - that doesn't make sense.

I suppose valid HTML doesn't seem important to non-technical people... but consider this. Using proper, semantic HTML makes pages accessible to students/visitors with disabilities by allowing tools such as screen readers and custom style sheets to be used.. Using proper, semantic HTML (generally) decreases the load time, as fewer markup tags are required and CSS can be cached easily. Using proper, semantic HTML can allow access to the webpage through any browser - Firefox, IE, Safari, Google Chrome, iPod/iPhone, Blackberry, etc and these can be easily modified with alternate stylesheets for different sized screens/applications.

The issue here is that something "new" was being created - but it was done poorly. When we have the chance to overhaul and reinvent access to student information - why are we using 10+ year old technology to do so? This is 2009 and standards and technology exists to make information accessible to everyone. The creator of MACCESS claims that 87% of people want Firefox/IE - but why not hit 100%? It doesn't make sense.

@DavidR: I also noticed that no icons for browsers other than Safari exist on the iMacs in the libraries. HOWEVER, if you go into the APPLICATIONS section through the Finder, you'll see Firefox IS indeed installed (at least on the iMac I was using). So Firefox is there, but hidden and not easily accessable to those who aren't used to using the Macs.

I've never actually used the library computers - so I suspected as much.  The rest of my post still stands, however