Better browsers for Mac?

[Lisa]

Oh, Hai... I haz Mac browzer problems for mai skool. My problems - let me tell you them.

Okay, so - my school has an interactive site that we're supposed to be doing our assignments on, accessing study notes, quizzes, getting announcements, etc. Most people in a law school, of course, are on PCs, and the site runs beautifully on Internet Explorer. But my baby at home is a shiny and lovely MacBook Pro (just got it back in October, so it's very new). I have both Safari and Firefox downloaded, and they both just seem to be missing something - I'm scared that I'm going to miss links and menus for my assignments. Since there really IS no IE browser for Macs anymore, I'm wondering if I've got the best Mac browser I can be using. What about Google Chrome, Opera, or Camino - will any of those give me - on a Mac - what I'm lacking for a site that functions best on IE?

I've logged into the homework site here at the office (PC with IE), and I see what I'm missing, so I really want to get this worked out ASAP. I guess if all else fails, there's a guy in my class who's pretty much one out of two people there who bring their laptops, and he has a MacBook. I'll ask him tonight what browser and version he uses, and if he's getting all the menus to the assignments. But any additional advice here would be greatly appreciated.

[Abraham Smashington]

Are you using Blackboard for your online courses?

[Lisa]

You're talking to the least tech-saavy person around - I don't know what Blackboard is.

[Abraham Smashington]

It would be the "interactive site" that gives you the tests/assignments, etc.

[Lisa]

Hang on, let me log in and see if I can tell...

Rob, does this help?

ParalegalSpace - RELEASE - Sakai 2.6.1 - Server www.paralegalspace.com:sakai1

[Abraham Smashington]

Well from looking into that site, in theory if you have Firefox (newest version) you should be fine (same with newest java version).

This is what I found:

Windows

• Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and newer
• Internet Explorer 7.0 and newer Note: In Internet Explorer 8, some pages may not display correctly. You may be able to improve the appearance by turning on Compatibility View. Within Internet Explorer, click <code>Tools</code> and then <code>Compatibility View</code>. See this Windows help article for more information.

Macintosh

• Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and newer

Other platforms

• Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and newer

Other considerations

Note: You may get unexpected results if you use two browser windows to access the same Sakai 2.6 tool at the same time. For best results, use one browser window to work in Sakai 2.6.

[Lisa]

Okay, thanks for looking into that for me, Rob, I do appreciate it! The school said to use Firefox if we're on a Mac, but this past weekend, I was checking things out and a lot of stuff wasn't showing up. I mean, not as many menu options that were there before, broken image links, all that - it was just a mess. Maybe it's a temporary glitch, but it looked like our site got mugged!

[Abraham Smashington]

It could also be a Java issue, unfortunately MAC's have the same problem with the Learning Platform I'm the administrator for. And I'm totally not a Mac Guy. But that site looked pretty wonky over on my end as well, so it may also be the site.

[Lisa]

Hey, Rob! I downloaded Google Chrome after I got home from class last night, and it's made a huge difference. Firefox still seems to be down as far as the work site for my class goes, but Google Chrome is showing even more menus, links, etc. than either Firefox or Safari does. So hopefully, that takes care of it. Thanks for your help yesterday!

[gravedigger]

So I'm using Safari mostly because I don't have a problem with it and am too lazy to download something else. ANYWAY...all of a sudden I have that bar along the bottom that shows the url for the hyperlink you're hovering over (status bar? I know just enough to get into trouble) along he bottom of the screen. Something I've never seen there before. How the hell did it get there?