Strange applet situation

Question

I have an applet (code below) that was compiled like so:
javac -target 1.1 DigiClock.java
that class is then used in the applet tag.
My machine has the 1.3 plugin, but no others do. I am the only one that can see the applet. Everyone else gets a grey box with no errors.
None of the code, as far as I can tell is beyond 1.1.
Any thoughts?
import java.awt.Graphics;
  import java.awt.*;
  import java.util.*;
  import java.text.*;
  public class DigiClock extends java.applet.Applet
         implements Runnable
     Font theFont = new Font("TimesRoman", Font.BOLD, 16);
     Date theDate;
     Thread runner;
     private SimpleDateFormat formatter;
     int h, m;
     String bi, tz;
     public Image bg;
      public void start()
          bi = getParameter("bgimage");
          bg = getImage(getCodeBase(), bi);
          tz = getParameter("timezone");
          System.out.println(tz);
          formatter = new SimpleDateFormat ("EEE MMM dd hh:mm:ss yyyy", Locale.getDefault());
          try {
               formatter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone(tz));
          catch(NullPointerException e) {
               formatter.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("Europe/Germany"));
          // start thread
       if (runner == null )
              runner = new Thread(this);
              runner.start();
        } // end of start
      public void stop()
       if (runner != null )
              runner.stop();
              runner = null;
        } // end of stop
       public void run()
           while(true)
               repaint();
               try { Thread.sleep(1000); }
               catch (InterruptedException e) { }
          } // end of run
     public void paint(Graphics g)
            theDate = new Date();
            formatter.applyPattern("h");
            formatter.format(theDate);
            h = Integer.parseInt(formatter.format(theDate));
         formatter.applyPattern("m");
         m = Integer.parseInt(formatter.format(theDate));
         g.drawImage(bg, 0,0,this);
            g.setFont(theFont);
            g.setColor(Color.white);
            g.drawString(h + ":" + m, 95,18);
            theDate = null;
          } // end of paint
      } // end of class

Answer 1

Are 'others' running it from a webserver somewhere or off local filesystem? If running from local filesystem you will get an AccessControlException when reading the image.