Use do_curl instead of drupal_http_request for availability check.

ConnectionHelper.inc

@@ -21,10 +21,10 @@ class ConnectionHelper {
 
     $creds = urlencode($_name) . ':'. urlencode($_pass);
 
-    if (strpos($url, 'http://') == 0) {
+    if (strpos($url, 'http://') === 0) {
       $new_url = 'http://'. $creds . '@'. substr($url, 7);
     } 
-    elseif (strpos($url, 'https://') == 0) {
+    elseif (strpos($url, 'https://') === 0) {
       $new_url = 'https://'. $creds . '@'. substr($url, 8);
     } 
     else {

api/fedora_utils.inc

@@ -66,8 +66,8 @@ function do_curl($url, $return_to_variable = 1, $number_of_post_vars = 0, $post
 }
 
 function fedora_available() {
-  $response = drupal_http_request(variable_get('fedora_base_url', 'http://localhost:8080/fedora').'/describe');
+  $response = do_curl(variable_get('fedora_base_url', 'http://localhost:8080/fedora').'/describe');
-  return ($response->code == 200);
+  return strstr($response, 'Repository Information HTML Presentation') !== FALSE;
 }
 
 /**