In the past week, two patrons have contacted us about problems accessing the iPac. Their descriptions of the problem are identical, i.e., they used to be able to connect with no problem, they've made no changes in their computer, they get "404 Page Not Found" error messages and they have no problem viewing other web pages.

We suspect that they may be using a web accelerator which is causing the problem. ISPs often provide these accelerator programs to dialup users. They use data compression technologies to speed up Internet connections. Sometimes the quality of images on web pages is affected by their use.

On OCPL's troubleshooting page they recommend turning off these accelerators when using the catalog. If you want know the geek stuff, the server that runs the library catalog uses a specific port, number 8080, to send and receive data. The accelerators are sometimes balky about connecting to this port.