The Accidental Developer

University of Michigan jobs site has major browser compatibility issues

At the risk of sounding like a one-note, I would like to again talk about browser compatibility issues. These compatibility issues affect an organization’s bottom line, and should not be ignored. In this particular case, The University of Michigan’s (U-M) job web site is unusable to about 10-15% of visitors, by my estimates (they are using Google Analytics on the page, so they should have that data). To me, this says that U-M may be missing out on some of the most qualified candidates for their position openings, undeniably at great cost to the organization. [I am particularly concerned in this case because U-M is my alma mater.]

In particular, the browsers that are not compatible with the U-M jobs site are Safari, Chrome, and Opera — browsers typically used by more tech-savvy users — so U-M may be missing out on the very candidates best-suited for work in today’s web-based world.
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Tags: chrome, cross-browser compatibilty, opera, safari, um, university of michigan

T-Mobile Website Unfriendly to Chrome, Safari

Early this morning, Nicola was bugging me to add a data plan to her phone account in anticipation of receiving her shiny new MyTouch. We logged on to the site using our favored browser, Google’s Chrome. Here’s what we found:

T-Mobile's default page in Chrome, post login

After several unsuccessful attempts to view info for her line from several different screens, we called T-Mobile’s customer support. The service rep walked through the same steps and said, “OK, now you should see tabs on the left with your names, phone numbers, and ‘Add A Line’.”

That’s when it hit me. I should try a different browser.
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Tags: accessibilty, ajax, chrome, cross-browser compatibilty, safari, tmobile, usability

Apache Install and Ambiguous Errors

I installed Apache 2.2.11 on the Windows XP portion of my desktop workstation for development purposes, but I got a lot of ambiguous errors when starting from the Apache Service Monitor or the Windows start menu.

Finally, when I started Apache from the command line I got a more informative error:
(OS 10048) Only one usage of each socket address (protocal/network address/port) is normally permitted. : make_sock: could not bind to address 127.0.0.1:80 no listening sockets available, shutting down

It turns out, I had Skype running, which by default binds to ports 5520, 80, and 443. There are several solutions:
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Tags: apache, skype, xp