Re: Official Apple II documentation?

[Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca>]

On Wed, 30 Jun 2010, David Empson wrote:

> Tony Cianfaglione <ab616@chebucto.ns.ca> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 29 Jun 2010, Mike Spurgeon wrote:
> >
> > > It goes directly to > http://www.apple2online.com/ for me...
> >
> > I get the same 406 error with the lower case url as well.  Odd.  I haven't
> > seen that error message before so I can't imagine what would cause it.
> > An error in coding perhaps?  Javascript error?
>
> From the HTTP 1.1 RFC:
>
> [begin quote]
>
> 10.4.7 406 Not Acceptable
> The resource identified by the request is only capable of generating
> response entities which have content characteristics not acceptable
> according to the accept headers sent in the request.
>
> [end quote]
>
> In other words, the site appears to be insisting on sending responses in
> a particular format, which some web browsers are not indicating that
> they accept.
>
> With a little experimentation it seems that the actual error is that the
> site is checking the User-Agent in the client's HTTP header, and only
> allowing certain web browsers. I was able to fetch the page with curl by
> including a User-Agent header which made curl pretend to be Safari
> (though I expect certain other browsers would work too).
>
> This is an exceptionally bad way of handling browser compatibility
> issues. At first glance, it appears to be specific to apple2online.com,
> which is hosted on nethosting.com.
>
> I don't get the same error if I go to http://nethosting.com with curl
> (without specifying User-Agent), but that isn't conclusive - their own
> web site could be handled differently from all their hosted web sites.
It's not the website, it's the server software.  I suspect (but don't
know) that some sites use something like Microsoft server software, and
that brings up the problem.  I may have read something that said
it is Microsoft related, but it was two years ago that I looked into it.
It's the sort of thing that shouldn't happen if the software came
from net-saavy people.

Try http://www.ecohosting.com

It's local, and I guess it was two years ago that I first got
the 406 error, with the local Fringe Festival.  But checking ecohosting,
where the page is kept, I got the same error.  I found at least one
other webpage that is hosted at ecohosting, and got the same error,
so that's where I get the impression it's a server issue, rather than
written into the webpage.

This ecohosting is a relative newcomer, and coming in making big
waves about raising money for charity groups (which lured various
non-profit groups to it), and it's the very sort of company that
would want a good image but wouldn't care about being accessible
to text-only browsers.  The owner likely doesn't even know what
a text-only browser is.  But then, the owner was arrested last
year for assaulting prostitutes, so the notion of being a "good
company" doesn't stop at being lynx-unfriendly.

   Michael