I don't know where to go to ask this general question, so I thought I'd try here.

The teachers in my board, and many others, have recently been set up to prepare reports online.

This made me very happy, as the program that I used to use gave me nothing but headaches running with wine in Linux, and in windows. This program was the only reason I kept a windows machine around the house.

But when I went to the web page, expecting a nice login prompt, I was greeted with a nasty quote stating that the web-page was "incompatible with my OS."

I tried all the browsers on my system, Opera, Konqueror, Firefox, and Epiphany. Frustrated, I fired up a Windows machine, and Firefox, and was greeted with a message stating that this page was incompatible with my browser. Only the ietab extension in firefox will actually load the page.

I have asked around in my IT department but I am wildly disregarded. I have contacted the application designers, but the support dept does not cater to individual users, I should contact my board's IT dept. for that.

Does anyone know anything about how and why I might be experiencing these messages?
Is it a simple programming thing? Are people using macs likely to have the same problems (being UNIX based as well)?

btw I tried using ie with wine, but it simply terminates before it even fully starts.

I can concede using a browser that I would rather not, just to access this one page, but having to change the whole OS seems a bit much.

Thanks,
nylon

Suse 10.1
AMD-64

Try using IE in Crossover Office or Ie4linux.
Main Page - IEs4Linux
http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page

Its probably using some stupid activex coding that only IE will recognize.

There's always the chance that it doesn't actually use any of these controls, but that front page or something like it is being a nazi. If that's the case you can tell your browser to identify itself as IE.

Normally, the setup of WINE is dangerous because one of its drives always links to the /. Of course you can remove it, but WINE is dependent on this drive. WINE could run viruses. By running WINE you have the possibility of infecting your Linux system with a Windows virus even though there are tight permissions. The most reliable and secure way is to use VMware.

I just hate to hear and read someone experiencing monkey in the middle. I suggest asking your IT to create a program do the task you want in JAVA. Java works on Linux, Windows, and Macs.