techniQal support

Here is the code for the simple AJAX functions I am using.
I will extend it some more later on, IE handle both GET and POST, as well as basic auth.
I know there are other more graceful libraries out there, but for now, my needs are simple.
Thanks to the number of different web authors, who I stole/borrowed bits and pieces of code from.

    var http_request = false;
    function makeRequest(url,divid) {
        div_id = divid;
        http_request = false;

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

        if (!http_request) {
            alert('Giving up  Cannot create an XMLHTTP instance');
            return false;
        }
        http_request.onreadystatechange = alertContents;
        http_request.open('GET', url, true);
        http_request.send(null);

    }

    function alertContents() {

        if (http_request.readyState == 4) {
            if (http_request.status == 200) {
		 document.getElementById(div_id).innerHTML = http_request.responseText;
            } else {
                alert('There was a problem with the request.');
            }
        }

    }
	function removeContents(divid) {
		document.getElementById(divid).innerHTML = "";
				}