function httpRequest() {
        var req = false;
        if(window.XMLHttpRequest) {
                try {
                        req = new XMLHttpRequest();
                        req.overrideMimeType('text/xml');
                } catch(e) {
                        req = false;
                }
        } else if(window.ActiveXObject) {
                try {
                        req = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
                } catch(e) {
                        try {
                                req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
                        } catch(e) {
                                req = false;
                        }
                }
        }

        return req;
}

function request( url, action, newreq ) {
	newreq.onreadystatechange = function () {
		if( newreq.readyState == 4 ) {
			action( newreq );
		}
	}
	newreq.open( "GET", url, true );
	newreq.send( null );
}

function nodeValue( node, xmldata ) {
	try {
		return xmldata.getElementsByTagName(node)[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
	} catch( e ) { return null; }
}