Beware the USB Modem
Submitted by on Sat, 04/18/2009 at 11:36am.
I recently had to resign all my in-progress games. I do a lot of traveling for work and just moved to Gorlitz, Germany where I couldn't get a broadband connection. So, I purchased a USB Modem and service from Vodaphone. I tested the connection to Chess.com while I was still in the store and had no problems seeing the page. Great!
Later that night I loaded the page to make a few moves. What!? I can't see the pieces on the board! I contacted the Chess.com Support right away. In the meantime, I set my vacation time active.
The gist from the Chess.com Support team is that I'm screwed. Chess.com uses javascript to display the pieces on the game board and allow moves. Basically, since a USB modem uses data compression it interferes with the javascript and I can't see the pieces on the board.
To be fair to all those 48 people I was playing at the time I had to resign all my games. Even if I hadn't resigned I would have lost anyway once 30 days of vacation time expired. Why waste vacation?