FEMA disaster website IE-only

Found on Ars Technica on Monday, 05 September 2005
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As relief workers scramble to provide comfort and succor to the thousands and thousands of people dispossessed by hurricane Katrina, tech relief efforts are hitting snags. Equipment shortages, problems accessing the Internet, and the time it takes to set up computers for refugees to use are all getting in the way of getting people help, but that's not too surprising. This is, after all, a disaster.

What is surprising, however, is the fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) online registration site for disaster help is Internet Explorer-only.

Workers on the ground have told Ars Technica that they would prefer to avoid setting up Windows XP workstations because they take longer to setup, and even longer to properly patch and configure for use. You may recall that in an experiment performed last year, a Windows XP SP1 box put on the Internet was compromised in 4 minutes flat.

Sorry, but in my opinion, their "webmaster" should be fired instantly. It's not really that hard to create a website which works in most browsers. I wanted to pay a visit and take a look, but it proved to be even worse: obviously, it's a requirement to accept a cookie; something I don't. So I got stuck in a loop. After some 100 attempts to set a cookie had been rejected, I decided to just close the window. So much for competent people.