As any fan of the SDMB knows, every once in a great while :rolleyes: the Board fails to load. You end up at the “The page cannot be displayed” screen (in IE at least). A few paragraphs down is the following:
Hovering the mouse over Detect Network Settings one sees the command “javascript:doNetDetect()” but any time I’ve clicked the link I get nothing. Not just here on the Boards, but at just about any other time I’ve been bored enough to click the link when I’ve seen that page. I’ve Googled the phrase, but get nothing but some humorous parodies of the screen – no normal definitions. I’ve done this on home, work and school computers, but have yet to run into a site or location that has enabled anything. I set up a simple two computer wireless network here (Win ME & 98) but saw nothing in the setup options or whatnot about javascript (doubted I would, but I checked before posting).
So I turn to the TMs, in hopes that someone out there will know the dark secret of NetDetect. Someone out there, trusted enough by their administrator to enable NetDetect will take advantage of the anonymity of the Internet, share their knowledge and Stamp Out Ignorance!
I believe it’s a little JavaScript routine that tries to automatically discover the proxy settings for your network - there is a standardized way of doing this. If the sys admin hasn’t set up this feature, doNetDetect() won’t do anything. I also believe it’s the same as checking the option “Automatically detect settings” under the connection settings in IE options.
Like DarrenS said, it attempts to find the proxy settings for a network.
Here’s the code for the function:
function doNetDetect()
{
saOC.NETDetectNextNavigate();
location.reload();
}
One if its uses is to resolve the problem that arises when a user is browsing with IE 4.0+ on a Local Network and then clicks on a link to a page outside of the network (causing IE to attempt to connect to the page directly, without using a proxy).
Unless the Administrator sets it up properly, any user (or more specifically, any program) that attempts to call this function will get denied for not having the proper “rights”.
And though it was sort of implied, an important point to note is that this javascript function, and the page containing the call to it, are IE specific. They are not generated by the site you are trying to view, but rather by your own computer when it can’t figure out how to reach that site.
You’ll never see that page if you use a different browser. You’ll see a different error message in that case.