Firefox Fixed (Or, My Brother to the Rescue)

On June 1, I wrote about my inability to access the university's digital library while using Firefox as my browser. My wonderful brother logged in to my computer remotely and discovered that although I had the latest Java update installed, Firefox did not like the fact that old versions were still lurking. Once he removed them, all was well. The Host Checker stopped its never-ending "check" and finally got down to business. What a relief when I finally saw that I was getting access! (For some reason, the old Java versions did not cause a problem in Explorer.)

Thank goodness for a brother who works in IT all day and still has the patience to help me with my computer!

It's time to get up and stretch. I've been sitting in front of this computer for almost four hours.

Frustrations with Firefox

Only one frustration, actually. For some reason, I can not access the university's online library using Firefox. I get to the Host Check screen, and it looks like data is being transferred, but it never finishes. The Help Desk staff told me that I won't be able to use Firefox to get into the library - something about an recent upgrade preventing its use.

I've learned through the Discussion Board that you can't use a Mac for this purpose, but that's not the problem.

The Secure VPN Service instructions state that Firefox 2.0 with Sun JRE 1.5 is compatible. What is Sun JRE 1.5? Is it an automatic component of the latest edition of Firefox? I'll have to find out. Could that be the missing link?

I was moving along O.K. until now. I know we've been told that things won't always work smoothly and that frustration will be a part of online studies. Stay tuned.