function ajaxRequest(){
    document.getElementById('list1').innerHTML = "initiating AJAX request";
 var activexmodes=["Msxml2.XMLHTTP", "Microsoft.XMLHTTP"] //activeX versions to check for in IE
 if (window.ActiveXObject){ //Test for support for ActiveXObject in IE first (as XMLHttpRequest in IE7 is broken)
  for (var i=0; i<activexmodes.length; i++){
   try{
    return new ActiveXObject(activexmodes[i])
   }
   catch(e){
    //suppress error
   }
  }
 }
 else if (window.XMLHttpRequest) // if Mozilla, Safari etc
  return new XMLHttpRequest()
 else
    alert("An error has occured making the request")
  return false
}

//Sample call:
//var myajaxrequest=new ajaxRequest()
function makerequestPost(serverPage, objID, params) {
	var obj = document.getElementById(objID);
    var xmlhttp = new ajaxRequ8est();

		xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
			if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4){
			   if(xmlhttp.status == 200 || window.location.href.indexOf("http")==-1) {
				obj.innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;
				} else {
				  obj.innerHTML = 'Error: ' + xmlhttp.status;
				     alert("An error has occured making the request")

				}  
			}
		}
		xmlhttp.open("POST", serverPage,'true');
		xmlhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded")
		xmlhttp.send(params);
	}