Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Another Empire Strikes Back?

I don't put questions of the techno-geek variety on this blog very often, but I"ve encountered a weird problem the past few days: I can no longer access my Hotmail using my Mozilla browser. Where the sign-in page would usually be, I get a message saying "We are unable to complete your request. The Passport network is experiencing technical difficulties." However, when I go over to Internet Explorer (which I've kept on my computer only reluctantly since discovering Mozilla), it worked perfectly fine.

(Incidentally, here's the requisite technical info for anyone who might have an answer for this: I'm running a vintage teal fishbowl iMac that I got for Christmas '98 [though I've added considerable RAM to the original 32 MB *shudder*]. I'm stuck on OS 9 because this just doesn't have the capacity to use OS X, so I can't use any of the Mac browsers like Safari, nor can I use Firefox. I was lucky enough to find a version of "regular" Mozilla [v.1.0.2] that has met my needs completely, with the exception of this current problem.)

Anyway, it really bugs me to think what might be happening here: a Microsoft product (Hotmail) only starts working on another Microsoft product (IE). Have any of my fellow Mac users had a problem like this before, and is there a way around it? I'm not a fan of the Gates Empire to begin with, and I've really hated the creaking process of checking my Hotmail lately (the pages even take longer to load because the ad data slows things down). Any help would be appreciated in the comments. (Constructive comments only, please; nobody besides Halfling is allowed to post "Mac sucks" or anything like that *grin*.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Tools > Options > Clear that cache, man!!
I have the Gmail mail checker on my desktop, and sometimes when I click to go sign into my inbox it gives me a similar error. Once I clear the cache things are fine.

Too bad you can't use the Fox. It's divine. :)

No Mac bashing from me (unless it's about the price). It's too bad that you can't "homebrew" a Mac like I did for my new PC. If that ever happens we can get you hooked up with a powerhouse of a system for drastically less than the retail price.