“What if the federal government were about to give away more than $400 billion in grants, but only people whose computers ran on Microsoft software could apply? That is the predicament that many scientists, scholars and others say they are in as the government enters the final phase of its five-year effort to streamline its grant-application process,” Rick Weiss reports for The Washington Post. “The new ‘Grants.gov’ system, under development at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, aims to replace paper applications with electronic forms. It is being phased in at the National Institutes of Health, Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies. All 26 grant-giving agencies are supposed to have their application processes fully online by 2007.”
“The problem: Although many U.S. scientists and others depend on graphics-friendly Macintosh computers, the software selected by the government is not Mac-compatible. And it is expected to remain so for at least a year,” Weiss reports. “Concerns about fairness during the transition have prompted angry humor on Mac-related listservs. ‘Uh, this would be the same government that spent a lot of time and money pursuing Microsoft for its anti-competitive behavior?’ one blogger wrote. ‘And they now offer a government site that mandates monopoly?'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “Qka” for the heads up.]
[UPDATE: 4:06pm EST: IBM has purchased PureEdge, and now calls the product IBM Workplace Forms; IBM plans to add Mac support in the future and Grants.gov has committed to providing a cross-platform solution by November 2006. In the interim, Grants.gov, in conjunction with NIH, has created a Citrix server solution that allows Mac OS X users to complete their application packages using Mac OS X. The University of Wisconsin has created a single preconfigured package for Mac OS X users to access this solution. This is provided as a service to the community. More info and download link (2.7MB .dmg) here.]
It’s also the same government that has accessibility laws on the books and is not supposed to exclude millions of people from such application processes. This whole mess is typical, of course. Weiss reports that the reason it’s all happening is because of “a small Canadian company called PureEdge Solutions [that was given] the job of creating the electronic forms. The PureEdge solution, it turns out, works only with the Windows operating system. And that is especially galling, several scientists said, as at least one major grant-making agency, the National Science Foundation, has for many years been using a ‘platform-independent’ system that works seamlessly with all kinds of computers.”
Why does the U.S. government feel it’s okay to ghettoize millions of Mac users? Do you feel it’s okay?
Judging from the number of emails we have received already alerting us to this story and based on previous experiences, we can all definitely make an impact here (MacDailyNews was visited by 2.7 million unique visitors in January).
The most important action that you can take, which could actually result in some positive result, as your vote is the key to their having the job: U.S. House of Representatives contact information: http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
Also contact: (1-800-518-4726)
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Related articles:
FEMA relents on Microsoft Windows-only policy – September 12, 2005
Macs need not apply for use on UK Parliament network – September 12, 2005
FEMA: Mac users drop dead – Hurricane Katrina online assistance site is Windows only – September 07, 2005
World Wide Web Consortium objects to US Copyright Office’s Internet Explorer-only browser plan – August 25, 2005
U.S. Copyright Office: Use only the world’s most insecure browser to secure your copyright – August 17, 2005
U.S. Copyright Office: is it okay if our new website only works with Internet Explorer? – August 11, 2005
The University of Wisconsin has put together a single package that contains all of the necessary items to use Grants.gov on Mac OS X using the Citrix solution. No local infrastructure is required, and any Mac user with an internet connection can use it. It’s completely self-contained and includes everything needed:
http://apple.doit.wisc.edu/grants.gov/
Regards,
Dave Schroeder
das@doit.wisc.edu
http://das.doit.wisc.edu
You gotta love the United States…
Better yet: don’t.
Come move to England. It’s sunny some of the time here. And we need all the professional Mac users we can get to convert the non-believers.
Start small.
“just like the fscking government to spend billions on a WEBSITE!!!! WTF?? I get so pissed when I pay my taxes because they go to stupid shit like this.”
j,
Please please please tell me you are joking. Otherwise, you need to work on your reading comprehension.
d
The Department of Defence fund cancer research? That’s ironic.
But then I guess they cause enough cancer with their depleted uranium weapons, so it’s only fitting.
What? The government hasn’t heard about Acrobat? Tell the idiots who madet his decision to contact the IRS.
I can see it now, someone is going to sue Apple for not being compatible and for being responsible for the loss of millions and/or billions in lucrative gov grants,
ron
11:32 am
Third post which has been censored. Why is that?
MW-land, as in ‘land of the free’ Not!
the answer to post editing, ron, is to wait later in the day, say 3 or 4 PM Eastern, and post what you want! the “censors” only censor or edit in the morning and early afternoon hours after that they move on to other things and then… chaos reigns!
meanwhile, I know this, the inner workings of the gov’ment is run by and large by idiots at management and lower levels. makes you wonder if in actuality all the middle management positions are manned (or womaned) my howler monkeys (all the chimps are in The House). it’s no surprise that something like this whole fiasco is happening! obviously some ‘higher ups’ are asleep at their post[b/]. access to all gov’ment sites, forms and info should be and eventually will be open to all but it is taking entirely too long and in 2006 should already be. in a way, this is a form of censorship… and no one should be CENSORED.
Just a shameless Google bomb
http://www.bkpfd.org
“Whites only.” “Microsoft only.” Digital Jim Crow, brothers and sisters.
If you want to work for the Sate of Florida, don’t try to search job openings or apply using just any browser. Here’s the Safari message:
This browser is not supported.
Supported browsers are:
1) Internet Explorer version 5.0 SP2 and higher
2) Netscape Navigator version 6.2 and higher
If you need further assistance, please contact the Service Center at 866 ONE-HRFL (866-663-4735).you must use Internet Explorer or Netscape.
This is probably in violation of some law or rule, but until enough people complain they will continue getting away with this crap.
meatofmoose,
Your post proves one point without doubt: you are white.
Actually, this is the government that when it achieved office let Microsoft of the hook for anti-competitive business practices. Likewise this is the same government that received tens of millions of dollars from Microsoft in campaign donations. Then again it might all just be a coincidence. I mean coincidences do happen. Don’t they!
MDN word: evidence as in the evidence is there on the public record.
Afghan television broadcasts footage of Al-Qaeda murders
KABUL (AFP) – Afghan television broadcast what it said was exclusive footage of men murdered, some of them beheaded, in Pakistan because they were against the extremist Taliban and Al-Qaeda movements.
The images broadcast on the evening news bulletin of private Tolo television station showed the decapitated heads of three men being held up in front of a crowd of onlookers.
They also showed several bodies being dragged behind a pick-up truck.
Tolo said the pictures were filmed in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal district, which shares a border with southern areas of Afghanistan most affected by a deadly insurgency blamed in most part of Taliban militants.
The men were killed because they “allegedly opposed the presence of Al-Qaeda and Taliban operators in South Waziristan”, the television station said in a statement on Friday.
“The footage, obtained by Tolo TV exclusively, shows half a dozen dead bodies being dragged by a vehicle through the streets of Mandrakhel (in Waziristan) — while a uniformed Pakistani military officer drives past without interfering,” the statement said.
“In other scenes mutilated bodies and severed heads are placed on display in various positions and locations to dissuade others from opposing Al-Qaeda/Taliban presence in the region.”
“Crowds are heard chanting ‘long live Osama bin Laden’ and ‘long live Mullah Omar’,” it said. The men are respectively the leaders of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The television station did not say how it obtained the footage of the alleged incident, which it said occurred about a month ago.
The leadership of the ultra-conservative Islamic Taliban regime is believed to have fled from Afghanistan into neighbouring Pakistan after it was toppled in late 2001 in a US-led invasion.
The attack that ousted them was launched after the hardliners did not hand over Osama bin Laden — a staunch ally — wanted for the September 11 attacks. During their nearly five-year hold of government, the Taliban imposed a harsh version of Islamic Sharia law which included chopping off hands for theft and public executions, with the bodies of the dead sometimes paraded in public.
Many believe the nearly four-year-old insurgency that sees almost daily attacks in Afghanistan, including beheadings, is directed from across the border in largely lawless, tribe-dominated areas of Pakistan, including Waziristan.
Pakistan has for about two years had thousands of troops in the area to root out militants, but some Afghan officials say more needs to be done to remove the extremists hobbling the country’s attempts to rebuild.
Cooperation between Islamabad and Kabul against the militants was the main theme of a three-day visit by President Hamid Karzai to Pakistan which ended Friday.
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