Dear Mac User and OSBA Member,
We regret any difficulty you are having with the newly redesigned OSBA website. In our effort to maximize the utilization of our limited resources and roll out the new web site efficiently, we elected to only support web browsers that are currently being developed and supported. Supporting older browsers would easily have tripled the amount of time it would have taken to launch the new web site.
Microsoft announced last year that is has dropped development of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh. Apple stopped development of MacOS 9 two years ago. Therefore the new OSBA Web site was only tested on Apple's Safari browser under Mac OS X, and the open-source Mozilla browser under OS X and OS 9. These browsers are all W3C standards compliant; however, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser for Windows is not 100% compliant with these standards.
Unfortunately, we had to cater to the 97% of our members that use Windows and Internet Explorer 6. Until Microsoft releases a 100% standards-compliant browser for Windows, we are forced to design the site based upon the browser used by the majority of our visitors, rather than adhere strictly to the W3C standards.While the entire site will function properly under Safari, Mozilla, or Netscape 7 on the Mac, there are a few cosmetic glitches which amount to some elements not lining up properly. Despite this, the site is fully functional under these browsers.
If you are not already running OS X, we highly recommend upgrading. The improvements to the operating system will give you greater productivity and stability in all of your applications, and you will also be more compatible with new software applications that are being released exclusively for OS X. More information on upgrading, including system specifications, can be found at Apple’s Web site:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/
We recommend putting as much memory into your machine as possible for the best OS X experience. You can find the best deals on memory at this website:
All of the browsers that work with the new OSBA Web site are available for OS X. Safari 1.2 comes with the latest version of OS X, and can easily import your Explorer bookmarks. Mozilla 1.6 for OS X is a free 15MB download which is available from this link:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.6/mozilla-mac-MachO-1.6.dmg.gz
If you decide to continue to run MacOS 9, we recommend using Mozilla 1.2.1. (The last version released for older MacOSs; it was released in December of 2002.) It's 18MB in size and can be downloaded here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.2.1/mozilla-macos9-1.2.1-full.bin
Since Netscape uses the Mozilla rendering engine, it will work as well. Netscape 7.1 for OS X and Netscape 7.0.2 for MacOS 8.6- 9.2.2 can be downloaded here:
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp
Other browsers based on Apple's WebCore engine for OS X or Mozilla's Gecko engine should also work. These include OmniWeb, Camino, and Firefox. However, these have not been tested and will not be explictly supported.
After using a more modern browser, we believe that you'll find the new website is well worth the minor inconvenience.
Best Regards,
The OSBA Web Development Team
10 May, 2004