We strive to make the exchange of used textbooks, DVDs, and Video Games as simple and efficient as possible. This is why SwapSimple.com is written with web standards and interoperability in mind. We try hard to make sure that our site looks good and works correctly regardless of the browser that you are using. The fact that browsers like Internet Explorer aren't actually standards compliant makes that task quite a bit harder, but not impossible. One tool that we use is Dean Edwards "IE7" script which adds much of the standards compliance that Microsoft doesn't care to implement.

We encourage you to use a better browser, such as Mozilla's Firefox (it's free!).

Due to the need for the IE work-around scripts, and, more importantly, because it allows us to create a more responsive and pleasant site, we require a JavaScript capable browser. If you have turned off JavaScript, or are using a browser that doesn't support it, you're on your own. Our site might work, but it will definitely not appear as we intend it to.

We facilitate the exchange of used textbooks, DVDs, and Video Games using JSP pages and Java Servlets. We use Struts to provide the general framework for our code. Struts was one of the packages available through the Jakarta Project before it outgrew that and became a more independent application.

The Jakarta Project includes a lot of great software which we also make use of (although the Commons Validator, included in Struts, is sub-par). The most significant piece of software that we use from there is the Tomcat Web Server, which provides the web container that all of our code runs in.

All of this is running NetBSD. NetBSD is a freely available BSD licensed UNIX-like operating system. It has many advantages, including a high degree of portability, good emphasis on security, fast networking, the ability to run programs from other operating systems, and an easy to use third party software package system.

In addition to the software mentioned above, we also use dozens of other applications and libraries. All of the software we use to provide this site is freely available, and most of it is open source.

We hope you truly enjoy exchanging your used textbooks, DVDs, and Video Games on SwapSimple.com

Cheers,

Eric

Eric R. Haszlakiewicz
Co-Founder & System Architect, SwapSimple.com