HELP - can you see this website?

[Emily]

I'm looking for volunteers to click on a link for me and let me know if they can see it. Only problem is it's for an elementary school, so I feel kinda funny about posting the link. If anyone is willing to PM me (or email to unique.inside*earthlink.net), I'll send the link.


The story:
My kids start school on Tuesday, and the principal has made it clear there will be no more paper coming home. We MUST view the website for notices, etc. Now I have been able to see the site just fine for a few years, but in the middle of the summer the pages stopped working, and I assumed they had been taken down for the summer. I thought it was weird they were still down so close to the start of school, so I asked Mom to click the links and they came up fine on her computer... I can see this district page and the High School and superintendent’s websites. However, none of the links to any of the six elementary schools work, nor when I type the address directly into the browser. Instead I get a 501 “The page cannot be displayed” error.

I use Windows XP professional, use either IE 6 or Motzilla 1.7 as browsers. I am online through Earthlink most often using my satellite connection, but also have a dial-up backup. I also have Norton Internet Security, but tried disabling that and all my other internet protection/firewalls/etc in case that was causing a problem. My daughter has Windows 98, uses IE 5, and our Earthlink dial-up connection only (no router - plugs right into the phone jack). The elementary web pages do not show up on her computer either.

The webmaster said, quote: "I'm afraid you're going to have to call Earthlink for support. You'll want to verify with them that you are using the correct DNS addresses in your Internet setup. They should be able to walk you through the steps necessary to confirm the correct DNS addresses. My hunch is that you are using the wrong address for DNS. DNS is what resolves a name into an address that computer networks understand."

So I spent a big chunk of the morning in chat with Earthlink support, tried a whole bunch of stuff, and didn't solve anything. I figure if the website shows up for all of you, I will have to keep looking here for a solution, but if some of you can't see it, I could tell the webmaster the problem definitely on his end.

TIA, TIA, TIA!!!

:1chirol_k

[Meya]

My kids start school on Tuesday, and the principal has made it clear there will be no more paper coming home. We MUST view the website for notices, etc.

He is sure that 100% of families are online? He must live in a dreamworld. Did you get anyone to check it for you? You can email me at melissa_bizz at yahoo dot com if you want. Just let me know.

[Kiheicat]

That's purely assanine to expect everyone to have internet access. I know it seems as though virtually everyone does these days but that's an outrageous demand.
FYI, pulled up the site. Check your PM.

[Emily]

Meya - I'll email you the link in a sec...

Kiheicat - thank you for checking. I appreciate it.


Update - wrote back to the webmaster and got a new clue...
Thank you, David. I have shared the links with some trusted friends and am waiting to hear back if any of them have trouble accessing the site. The most frustrating thing is I could see all the pages for years, and couldn’t wait for the day the xxxxxx one was updated regularly. I don’t know what changed since I could see them in June – I know I didn’t change anything on my end this summer. Oh well, I’ll keep trying. I have an iMac that isn’t currently online…I’ll try moving that to the nearest phone jack and see if that works.

Emily


Hi Emily,

I sent a message to the woman from Rowe who also uses Earthlink and had the same problem. Hopefully, she can tell us what she did to fix it. We changed our ISP to Crocker in July and that meant new addresses for us and what not, but we think most of the bugs of the switchover have been ironed out. It would be interesting to see what the iMac does. Let me know.

David


Of course, I couldn't get the iMac to keep a connection - it would repeatedly hang up on me and I was too frustrated to play with it anymore right now BUT my parents have "Crocker" (a small local ISP) so I'm betting it's an ISP compatibility thing...

Are there any volunteers that use Earthlink who can check the link for me? THANK YOU!

[Meya]

Yep, that page comes up fine for me. I still think he is living in a dream world if he expects every family to have internet access. Getting paperwork home to parents has always been a challenge, but his current expectation is way high.

[Emily]

She ;)


In fact, she was my math teacher in 6th grade. In 5th grade, they skipped two of us ahead to 6th grade math. In 6th grade, the other girl left and they decided they wouldn't do anything "special" for just one kid, so I had to do 6th grade math all over again! What a horrible year. I didn't like her as a teacher then, and like her even less as a principal now.

Fortunately, the webmaster (David) is the computer teacher at the high school so I can go "around" the elementary principal on this one. :D

[Kiheicat]

Frankly I would consider going around the webmaster, the teacher, AND the principal and put in a non-threatening but no bullshit call to the school board and let them know in no uncertain terms that expecting 100% of the parents in the school to not only have internet access but also understand it and use it as their only means of keeping up with what is going on at school is singing The Impossible Dream.
Add to that why should you have to go through the aggravation and time-consuming work of accessing that which should be readily available to you at all times?
Humph.

[Emily]

I posted a similar request on a local forum, and have a verizon user that can't see it...hmmmmmmm

[Eriu]

Kind of along those lines...I've told my kid's schools that they are not allowed to be on the interent unless they are being properly supervised and it is dor school work. I do not allow them access at home at all.

Now, if they are asigned a project, I sit with them until they are finiched, but I'll be darned if I'm giving my kids free reign.

[Emily]

Okay, I've got two Verizon users and three Earthlink users that can't see it which I found though a local chatboard and by emailing relatives. Is anyone else here willing to help by clicking a link? - or I could give you the school name and you can google it if you are shy about clicking something I send... Every new puzzle piece will make a difference.

Thank you!!!

[Eriu]

Emily,

You can send it to me.

[Emily]

Thanks again Eriu! Very interesting to know you can't see it so it's not just me. I popped off an email to the webmaster asking about firewalls on that end...

:)